A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 



BY THEODORE DREISER 

THE "GENIUS" 

SISTER CARRIE 

JENNIE GERHARDT 

A TRAVELER AT FORTY 

PLAYS OF THE NATURAL AND 
THE SUPERNATURAL 

THE FINANCIER ] 

THE TITAN \ a trilogy of desire'. 




THE WARSAW HOME 
The Mecca of this trip 

/•'rout IS piece 



AHG9SIER 
HOLIDAY 

THEODORE DREISER 

WITH ILLV5TRATION5 
BY FRANKLIN BOOTH- 




NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY 

LONDON: JOHN LANE 
THE BODLEYHEAD 

MCMXVI 






Copyright, 1916, by 
John Lane Company 



NOV 22 1916 



Press of 

J. J. Little & Ives Company 

New York, U. S. A. 



©CI.A44573G 



TO 

MY MOTHER 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTEK PAGE 

I. The Rose Window 13 

II. The Scenic Route 20 

III. Across the Meadows to the Passaic . 24 

IV. The Piety and Eggs of Paterson . . 29 
V. Across the Delaware 35 

VI. An American Summer Resort .... 42 

VII. The Pennsylvanians 50 

VIII. Beautiful Wilkes-Barre 58 

IX. In and Out of Scranton 65 

X. A Little American Town 75 

XI. The Magic of the Road and Some Tales . 81 

XII. Railroads and a New Wonder of the 

World 92 

XIII. A Country Hotel 98 

XIV. The City of Swamp Root 107 

XV. A Ride BY Night 116 

XVI. Chemung 123 

XVII. Chicken and Waffles and the Toon 

O' Bath 131 

XVIII. Mr. Hubbard and an Automobile Flir- 
tation 141 

XIX. The Rev. J. Cadden McMilckens . . 150 

XX. The Capital of the Fra 159 

XXI. Buffalo Old and New 169 

XXII. Along the Erie Shore 176 

XXIII. The Approach to Erie 182 

XXIV. The Wreckage of a Storm 190 

XXV. CoNNEAUT 197 

XXVI. The Gay Life of the Lake Shore . . 204 

XXVII. A Summer Storm and Some Comments on 

THE Picture Postcard 214 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

XXVIII. In Cleveland 221 

XXIX. The Flat Lands of Ohio 229 

XXX. Ostend Purged of Sin 234 

XXXI. When Hope Hopped High 244 

XXXII. The Frontier of Indiana 256 

XXXIII. Across the Border of Boyland . . . 264 

XXXIV. A Middle Western Crowd 273 

XXXV. Warsaw at Last 283 

XXXVI. Warsaw in 1884-6 290 

XXXVIL The Old House 298 

XXXVIII. Day Dreams 305 

XXXIX. The Kiss of Fair Gusta 309 

XL. Old Haunts AND Old Dreams . . . .317 

XLI. Bill Arnold and His Brood .... 327 

XLII. In the Chautauqua Belt 335 

XLIII. The Mystery of Coincidence .... 346 

XLIV. The Folks at Carmel 357 

XLV. An Indiana Village 370 

XLVI. A Sentimental Interlude 379 

XLVII. Indianapolis and a Glympse of Fairy- 
land 385 

XLVIII. The Spirit of Terre Haute .... 396 

XLIX. Terre Haute After Thirty-Seven Years 401 

L. A Lush, Egyptian Land 409 

LI. Another "Old Home" 419 

LII. Hail, Indiana! 428 

LIII. Fishing in the Busseron and a County 

Fair 434 

LIV. The Ferry at Decker 440 

LV. A Minstrel Brother 448 

LVI. EvANSviLLE 454 

LVII. The Backwoods of Indiana .... 465 

LVIII. French Lick 475 

LIX. A College Town 486 

LX. "Booster Day" and a Memory , . . 496 

LXI. The End of the Journey 505 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

The Warsaw Home Frontispiece -' 

FACING 
PAGE 

The Old Essex and Morris Canal 38"^ 

Wilkes-Barre 58 

A Coal Breaker Near Scranton 62 ' 

Franklin Studies an Obliterated Sign 70 

Factory ville Bids Us Farewell 88" 

The Great Bridge at Nicholsen ....... 94 

Florence and the Arno, at Owego IIO' 

Beyond Elmira 132 

Franklin Dreams Over a River Beyond Savona . . . 136' 

The "Toon 0' Bath" 140- 

Egypt at Buffalo 178 

Pleasure before Business 1 86 

Conneaut, Ohio 200 

The Bridge That Is to Make Franklin Famous . . . 218 

Where I Learn That I Am Not to Live Eighty Years . 222^ 

Cedar Point, Lake Erie 238 

Hicksville 268 

With the Old Settlers at Columbia City, Indiana . . 276 

Central Indiana 330 

In Carmel 362 

The Best of Indianapolis 382 

The Standard Bridge of Fifty Years Ago 390 

Franklin's Impression of My Birthplace 398 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACING 
PAGE 

Terre Haute from West of the Wabash 404" 

My Father's Mill 422' 

Vincennes 432" 

The Ferry at Decker 444" 

The Ohio at Evansville 458' 

A Beautiful Tree on a Vile Road 468" 

A Cathedral of Trees 472 

French Lick 478 '^ 



A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 



CHAPTER I 

THE ROSE WINDOW 

It was at a modest evening reception I happened to be 
giving to a new poet of renown that the idea of the holi- 
day was first conceived. I had not seen Franklin, sub- 
sequent companion of this pilgrimage, in all of eight or 
nine months, his work calling him in one direction, mine 
in another. He is an illustrator of repute, a master of 
pen and ink, what you would call a really successful artist. 
He has a studio in New York, another in Indiana — his 
home town — a car, a chauffeur, and so on. 

I first met Franklin ten years before, when he was 
fresh from Indiana and working on the Sunday supple- 
ment of a now defunct New York paper. I was doing 
the same. I was drawn to him then because he had such 
an air of unsophisticated and genial simplicity while look- 
ing so much the artist. I liked his long, strong aquiline 
nose, and his hair of a fine black and silver, though he 
was then only twenty-seven or eight. It is now white — 
a soft, artistic shock of it, glistening white. Franklin 
is a Christian Scientist, or dreamy metaphysician, a fact 
which may not commend him in the eyes of many, though 
one would do better to await a full metaphysical inter- 
pretation of his belief. It would do almost as well to call 
him a Buddhist or a follower of the Bhagavad Gita. 
He has no hard and fast Christian dogmas in mind. In 
fact, he is not a Christian at all, in the accepted sense, 
but a genial, liberal, platonic metaphysician. I know of 
no better way to describe him. Socalled sin, as some- 
thing wherewith to reproach one, does not exist for him. 
He has few complaints to make concerning people's weak- 

13 



14 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

nesses or errors. Nearly everything is well. He lives 
happily along, sketching landscapes and trees and draw- 
ing many fine simplicities and perfections. There is about 
him a soothing repose which is not religious but human, 
which I felt, during all the two thousand miles we sub- 
sequently idled together. Franklin is also a very liberal 
liver, one who does not believe in stinting himself of the 
good things of the world as he goes — a very excellent 
conclusion, I take it. 

At the beginning of this particular evening nothing 
was farther from my mind than the idea of going back 
to Indiana. Twentyeight years before, at the age of 
sixteen, I had left Warsaw, the last place In the state 
where I had resided. I had not been in the town of my 
birth, Terre Haute, Indiana, since I was seven. I had 
not returned since I was twelve to Sullivan or Evansvllle 
on the Ohio River, each of which towns had been my 
home for two years. The State University of Indiana 
at Bloomlngton, in the south central portion of the state, 
which had known me for one year when I was eighteen, 
had been free of my presence for twentysix years. 

And in that time what illusions had I not built up in 
connection with my native state! Who does not allow 
fancy to color his primary experiences in the world? 
Terre Haute I A small city in which, during my first 
seven years, we lived in four houses. Sulliv^an, where 
we had lived from my seventh to my tenth year, in one 
house, a picturesque white frame on the edge of the 
town. In Evansvllle, at 1413 East Franklin Street, in 
a small brick, we had lived one year, and in Warsaw, 
in the northern part of the state, in a comparatively large 
brick house set in a grove of pines, we had spent four 
years. My mother's relatives were all residents of this 
northern section. There had been three months, be- 
tween the time we left Evansvllle and the time we settled 
in Warsaw, Kosciusko County, which we spent in Chicago 
— my mother and nearly all of the children; also six 
weeks, between the time we left Terre Haute and the 



THE ROSE WINDOW 15 

time we settled in Sullivan, which we spent in Vincennes, 
Indiana, visiting a kindly friend. 

We were very poor in those days. My father had 
only comparatively recently suffered severe reverses, from 
which he really never recovered. My mother, a dreamy, 
poetic, impractical soul, was serving to the best of her 
ability as the captain of the family ship. Most of the ten 
children had achieved comparative maturity and had 
departed, or were preparing to depart, to shift for them- 
selves. Before us — us little ones — were all our lives. 
At home, in a kind of intimacy which did not seem to 
concern the others because we were the youngest, were 
my brother Ed, two years younger than myself; my sis- 
ter Claire (or Tillie), two years older, and occasionally 
my brother Albert, two years older than Claire, or my 
sister Sylvia, four years older, alternating as it were 
in the family home life. At other times they were out 
in the world working. Sometimes there appeared on 
the scene, usually one at a time, my elder brothers, 
Mark and Paul, and my elder sisters, Emma, Theresa, 
and Mary, each named in the order of their ascending 
ages. As I have said, there were ten all told — a rest- 
less, determined, halfeducated family who, had each 
been properly trained according to his or her capacities, 
I have always thought might have made a considerable 
stir in the world. As it was — but I will try not to 
become too technical. 

But in regard to all this and the material and spirit- 
ual character of our life at that time, and what I had 
done and said, and what others had done and said, what 
notions had not arisen! They were highly colored ones, 
which might or might not have some relationship to the 
character of the country out there as I had known it. I 
did not know. Anyhow, it had been one of my dearly 
cherished ideas that some day, when I had the time and 
the money to spare, I was going to pay a return visit 
to Indiana. My father had once owned a woolen mill 
at Sullivan, still standing, I understood (or its duplicate 
built after a fire), and he also had managed another 



i6 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

at Terre Haute. I had a vague recollection of seeing 
him at work in this one at Terre Haute, and of being 
shown about, having a spinning jenny and a carder and 
a weaver explained to me. I had fished in the Busseron 
near Sullivan, nearly lost my life in the Ohio at Evans- 
ville in the dead of winter, fallen in love with the first 
girls I ever loved at Warsaw. The first girl who ever 
kissed me and the first girl I ever ventured to kiss were 
at Warsaw. Would not that cast a celestial light over 
any midwestern village, however homely? 

Well, be that as it may, I had this illusion. Someday 
I was going back, only in my plans I saw myself taking 
a train and loafing around in each village and hamlet 
hours or days, or weeks if necessary. At Warsaw I 
would try to find out about all the people I had ever 
known, particularly the boys and girls who went to 
school with me. At Terre Haute I would look up the 
house where I was born and our old house in Seventh 
Street, somewhere near a lumber yard and some railroad 
tracks, where, in a cool, roomy, musty cellar, I had swung 
in a swing hung from one of the rafters. Also in this 
lumber yard and among these tracks where the cars 
were, I had played with Al and Ed and other boys. Also 
in Thirteenth Street, Terre Haute, somewhere there was 
a small house (those were the darkest days of our pov- 
erty), where I had been sick with the measles. My 
father was an ardent Catholic. For the first fifteen years 
of my life I was horrified by the grim spiritual punish- 
ments enunciated by that faith. In this house in Thir- 
teenth Street I had been visited by a long, lank priest 
in black, who held a silver crucifix to my lips to be kissed. 
That little house remains the apotheosis of earthly gloom 
to me even now. 

At Sullivan I intended to go out to the Easier House, 
where we lived, several blocks from the local or old 
Evansville and Terre Haute depot. This house, as I re- 
called, was a charming thing of six or seven rooms with 
a large lawn, in which roses flourished, and with a truck 
garden north of it and a wonderful clover field to the 



THE ROSE WINDOW 17 

rear (or east) of it. This clover field — how shall I 
describe it? — but I can't. It wasn't a clover field at all 
as I had come to think of it, but a honey trove in Arcady. 
An army of humble bees came here to gather honey. In 
those early dawns of spring, summer and autumn, when, 
for some reason not clear to me now, I was given to 
rising at dawn, it was canopied by a wonderful veil of 
clouds (tinted cirrus and nimbus effects), which seemed, 
as I looked at them, too wonderful for words. Across 
the fields was a grove of maples concealing a sugar camp 
(not ours), where I would go in the early dawn to bring 
home a bucket of maple sap. And directly to the north 
of us was a large, bare Gethsemane of a field, in the 
weedy hollows of which were endless whitening bones, 
for here stood a small village slaughter house, the sacri- 
ficial altar of one local butcher. It was not so gruesome 
as it sounds — only dramatic. 

But this field and the atmosphere of that home! I 
shall have to tell you about them or the import of re- 
turning there will be as nothing. It was between my 
seventh and my tenth year that we lived there, among 
the most impressionable of all my youth. We were very 
hard pressed, as I understood it later, but I was too 
young and too dreamy to feel the pinch of poverty. 
This lower Wabash valley is an Egyptian realm — not 
very cold in winter, and drowsy with heat in summer. 
Corn and wheat and hay and melons grow here in heavy, 
plethoric fashion. Rains come infrequently, then only in 
deluging storms. The spring comes early, the autumn 
lingers until quite New Year's time. In the beech and 
ash and hickory groves are many turtle doves. Great 
hawks and buzzards and eagles soar high in the air. 
House and barn martins circle in covies. The bluejay 
and scarlet tanager flash and cry. In the eaves of our 
cottage were bluebirds and wrens, and to our trumpet 
vines and purple clematis came wondrous humming birds 
to poise and glitter, tropic in their radiance. In old 
Kirkwood's orchard, a quarter of a mile away over the 



1 8 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

clover field, I can still hear the guinea fowls and the pea- 
cocks "calling for rain." 

Sometimes the experiences of delicious years make a 
stained glass window — the rose window of the west — in 
the cathedral of our life. These three years in "dirty 
old Sullivan," as one of my sisters once called it (with a 
lip-curl of contempt thrown in for good measure), form 
such a flower of stained glass in mine. They are my rose 
window. In symphonies of leaded glass, blue, violet, 
gold and rose are the sweet harmonies of memory with 
all the ills of youth discarded. A bare-foot boy is sit- 
ting astride a high board fence at dawn. Above him 
are the tinted fleeces of heaven, those golden argosies of 
youthful seas of dream. Over the blooming clover are 
scudding the swallows, "my heart remembers how." I 
look, and in a fence corner is a spider web impearled 
with dew, a great yellow spider somewhere on its sur- 
face is repairing a strand. At a window commanding 
the field, a window in the kitchen, is my mother. My 
brother Ed has not risen yet, nor my sister Tillie. The 
boy looks at the sky. He loves the feel of the dawn. 
He knows nothing of whence he is coming or where he 
is going, only all is sensuously, deliriously gay and beau- 
tiful. Youth is his: the tingle and response of a new 
body; the bloom and fragrance of the clover in the air; 
the sense of the mystery of flying. He sits and sings 
some tuneless tune. Of such is the kingdom of heaven. 

Or it is a great tree, say, a hundred yards from the 
house. In its thick leaves and widespreading branches 
the wind is stirring. Under its shade Ed and Tillie and 
I are playing house. What am I? Oh, a son, a hus- 
band, or indeed anything that the occasion requires. We 
play at duties — getting breakfast, or going to work, or 
coming home. Why? But a turtle dove is calling some- 
where in the depths of a woodland, and that gives me 
pause. "Bob white" cries and I think of strange and 
faroff things to come. A buzzard is poised in the high 
blue above and I wish I might soar on wings as wide. 

Or is it a day with a pet dog? Now they are running 



THE ROSE WINDOW 19 

side by side over a stubbly field. Now the dog has wan- 
dered away and the boy is calling. Now the boy is 
sitting in a rocking chair by a window and holding the 
dog in his lap, studying a gnarled tree in the distance, 
where sits a hawk all day, meditating no doubt on his 
midnight crimes. Now the dog is gone forever, shot 
somewhere for chasing sheep, and the boy, disconsolate, 
is standing under a tree, calling, calling, calling, until 
the sadness of his own voice and the futility of his cries 
moves him nearly to tears. 

These and many scenes like these make my rose win- 
dow of the west. 



CHAPTER II 

THE SCENIC ROUTE 

It was a flash of all this that came to me when in the 
midst of the blathering and fol de rol of a gay evening 
Franklin suddenly approached me and said, quite apropos 
of nothing: "How would you like to go out to Indiana 
in my car?" 

"I'll tell you what, Franklin," I answered, "all my 
life I've been thinking of making a return trip to Indiana 
and writing a book about it. I was born in Tef :e Haute, 
down in the southwest there below you, and I was brought 
up in Sullivan and Evansville in the southern part of 
the state and in Warsaw up north. Agree to take me 
to all those places after we get there, and I'll go. What's 
more, you can illustrate the book if you will." 

"I'll do that," he said. "Warsaw is only about two 
hours north of our place. Terre Haute is seventyfive 
miles away. Evansville is a hundred and fifty. We'll 
make a oneday trip to the northern part and a three- 
day trip to the southern. I stipulate but one thing. If 
we ruin many tires, we split the cost." 

To this I agreed. 

Franklin's home was really central for all places. It 
was at Carmel, fifteen miles north of Indianapolis. His 
plan, once the trip was over, was to camp there in his 
country studio, and paint during the autumn. Mine was 
to return direct to New York. 

We were to go up the Hudson to Albany and via 
various perfect state roads to Buffalo. There we were 
to follow other smooth roads along the shore of Lake 
Erie to Cleveland and Toledo, and possibly Detroit. 
There we were to cut southwest to Indianapolis — so close 
to Carmel. It had not occurred to either of us yet to 

20 



THE SCENIC ROUTE 21 

go direct to Warsaw from Toledo or thereabouts, and 
thence south to Carmel. That was to come as an after- 
thought. 

But this Hudson-Albany-State-road route irritated me 
from the very first. Everyone traveling in an automobile 
seemed inclined to travel that way. I had a vision of 
thousands of cars which we would have to trail, con- 
suming their dust, or meet and pass, coming toward us. 
By now the Hudson River was a chestnut. Having trav- 
eled by the Pennsylvania and the Central over and over 
to the west, all this mid-New York and southern Pennsyl- 
vania territory was wearisome to think of. Give me the 
poor, undernourished routes which the dull, imitative 
rabble shun, and where, because of this very fact, you 
have some peace and quiet. I traveled all the way up- 
town the next day to voice my preference in regard to 
this matter. 

"I'd like to make a book out of this," I explained, "if 
the material is interesting enough, and there isn't a thing 
that you can say about the Hudson River or the central 
part of New York State that hasn't been said a thou- 
sand times before. Poughkeepsie, Albany, Troy, Syra- 
cuse, Rochester — all ghastly manufacturing towns. Why 
don't we cut due west and see how we make out? This 
is the nicest, dryest time of the year. Let's go west to 
the Water Gap, and straight from there through Penn- 
sylvania to some point in Ohio, then on to Indianapolis." 
A vision of quaint, wild, unexpected regions in Pennsyl- 
vania came to me. 

"Very good," he replied genially. He was playing 
with a cheerful, pop-eyed French bull. "Perhaps that 
would be better. The other would have the best roads, 
but we're not going for roads exactly. Do you know the 
country out through there?" 

"No," I replied. "But we can find out. I suppose the 
Automobile Club of America ought to help us. I might 
go round there and see what I can discover." 

"Do that," he applauded, and I was making to depart 



22 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

when Franklin's brother and his chauffeur entered. The 
latter he introduced as "Speed." 

"Speed," he said, "this is Mr. Dreiser, who is going 
with us. He wants to ride directly west across Penn- 
sylvania to Ohio and so on to Indianapolis. Do you think 
you can take us through that way?" 

A blond, lithe, gangling youth with an eerie farmer- 
like look and smile ambled across the room and took 
my hand. He seemed half mechanic, half street-car con- 
ductor, half mentor, guide and friend. 

"Sure," he replied, with a kind of childish smile that 
won instantly — a little girl smile, really. "If there are 
any roads, I can. We can go anywhere the car'll go." 

I liked him thoroughly. All the time I was trying 
to think where I had seen Speed before. Suddenly it 
came to me. There had been a car conductor in a re- 
cent comedy. This was the stage character to life. Be- 
sides he reeked of Indiana — the real Hoosier. If you 
have ever seen one, you'll know what I mean. 

"Very good," I said. "Fine. Are you as swift as 
your name indicates. Speed?" 

"I'm pretty swift," he said, with the same glance that 
a collie will give you at times — a gay, innocent light of 
the eyesl 

A little while later Franklin was saying to me that he 
had no real complaint against Speed except this: "If you 
drive up to the St. Regis and go in for half an hour, when 
you come out the sidewalk is all covered with tools and 
the engine dismantled — that is, if the police have not 
interfered." 

"Just the same," put in Fred Booth, "he is one of the 
chauffeurs who led the procession of cars from New York 
over the Alleghanies and Rockies to the coast, laying out 
the Lincoln Highway." (Afterwards I saw testimonials 
and autographed plates which proved this.) "He can 
take a car anywhere she'll go." 

Then I proceeded to the great automobile club for 
information. 



THE SCENIC ROUTE 23 

"Are you a member?" asked the smug attendant, a 
polite, airy, bufferish character. 

"No, only the temporary possessor of a car for a 
tour." 

"Then we can do nothing for you. Only members arc 
provided with information." 

On the table by which I was standing lay an automo- 
bile monthly. In its pages, which I had been idly thumb- 
ing as I waited, were a dozen maps of tours, those de- 
ceptive things gotten up by associated roadhouses and 
hotels in their own interest. One was labeled "The 
Scenic Route," and showed a broad black line extending 
from New York via the Water Gap, Stroudsburg, Wilkes- 
Barre, Scranton, BInghamton, and a place called Watkins 
Glen, to Buffalo and Niagara Falls. This interested me. 
These places are in the heart of the Alleghanies and of 
the anthracite coal region. Visions of green hills, deep 
valleys, winding rivers, glistering cataracts and the like 
leaped before my mind. 

"The Scenic Route!" I ventured. "Here's a map that 
seems to cover what I want. What number is this?" 

"Take it, take it!" replied the lofty attendant, as if 
to shoo me out of the place. "You are welcome." 

"May I pay you?" 

"No, no, you're welcome to it." 

I bowed myself humbly away. 

"Well, auto club or no auto club, here is something, 
a real route," I said to myself. "Anyhow it will do 
to get us as far as Wilkes-Barre or Scranton. x'\fter 
that we'll just cut west if we have to." 

On the way home I mooned over such names as To- 
byhanna, Meshoppen, Blossburg, and Roaring Branch. 
What sort of places were they? Oh, to be speeding along 
in this fine warm August weather! To be looking at the 
odd places, seeing mountains, going back to Warsaw and 
Sullivan and Terre Haute and Evansvillel 



CHAPTER III 

ACROSS THE MEADOWS TO THE PASSAIC 

I ASSUME that automobiling, even to the extent of a 
two-thousand-mile trip such as this proved to be, is an 
old story to most people. Anybody can do it, appar- 
ently. The difference is to the man who is making the 
trip, and for me this one had the added fillip of includ- 
ing that pilgrimage which I was certain of making some 
time. 

There was an unavoidable delay owing to the sudden 
illness of Speed, and then the next morning, when I was 
uncertain as to whether the trip had been abandoned or 
no, the car appeared at my door in Tenth Street, and 
off we sped. There were some amusing preliminaries. 

I was introduced to Miss H , a lady who was to 

accompany us on the first day of our journey. A photo- 
graph was taken, the bags had to be arranged and 
strapped on the outside, and Speed had to examine his 
engine most carefully. Finally we were off — up Eighth 
Avenue and across Fortysecond Street to the West Forty- 
second Street Ferry, while we talked of non-skid chains 
and Silvertown tires and the durability of the machines 
in general — this one in particular. It proved to be a 
handsome sixty-horsepower Pathfinder, only recently 
purchased, very presentable and shiny. 

As we crossed the West Fortysecond Street Ferry I 
stood out on the front deck till we landed, looking at the 
refreshing scene the river presented. The day was fine, 
nearly mid-August, with a sky as blue as weak indigo. 
Flocks of gulls that frequent the North River were dip- 
ping and wheeling. A cool, fresh wind was blowing. 

As we stood out in front Miss H deigned to tell 

me something of her life. She is one of those self- 

24 



ACROSS THE MEADOWS TO THE PASSAIC 25 

conscious, carefully dressed, seemingly prosperous maid- 
ens of some beauty who frequent the stage and the 
studios. At present she was Franklin's chief model. 
Recently she had been in some pantomime, dancing. A 
little wearied perhaps (for all her looks), she told me 
her stage and art experiences. She had to do something. 
She could sing, dance, act a little, and draw, she said. 
Artists seemed to crave her as a model — so 

She lifted a thin silk veil and dabbed her nose with 
a mere rumor of a handkerchief. Looking at her so 
fresh and spick in the morning sunlight, I could not help 
feeling that Franklin was to be congratulated in the 
selection of his models. 

But in a few minutes we were off again. Speed obvi- 
ously holding in the machine out of respect for officers 
who appeared at intervals, even in Weehawken, to wave 
us on or back. I could not help feeling as I looked 
at them how rapidly the passion for regulating street 
traffic had grown in the last few years. Everywhere we 
seemed to be encountering them — the regulation New 
York police cap (borrowed from the German army) 
shading their eyes, their air of majesty beggaring the 
memories of Rome — and scarcely a wagon to regulate. 
At Passaic, at Paterson — but I anticipate. 

As we hunted for a road across the meadows we got 
lost in a maze of shabby streets where dirty children 
were playing in the dust, and, as we gingerly picked our 
way over rough cobbles, I began to fear that much of 
this would make a disagreeable trip. But we would soon 
be out of it, in all likelihood — miles and miles away from 
the hot, dusty city. 

I can think of nothing more suited to my temperament 
than automobiling. It supplies just that mixture of 
change in fixity which satisfies me — leaves me mentally 
poised in inquiry, which is always delightful. Now, for 
instance, we were coming out on a wide, smooth macadam 
road, which led, without a break, as someone informed 
us, into Passaic and then into Paterson. It was the first 
opportunity that Speed had had to show what the ma- 



26 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

chine could do, and instantly, though various signs read, 
"Speed Hmit: 25 miles an hour," I saw the speedometer 
climb to thirtyfive and then forty and then fortyfive. 
It was a smooth-running machine which, at its best (or 
worst), gave vent to a tr-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r which became 
after a while somewhat like a croon. 

Though it was a blazing hot day (as any momentary 
pause proved, the leather cushions becoming like an 
oven), on this smooth road, and at this speed, it was 
almost too cool. I had decked myself out in a brown 
linen outing shirt and low visored cap. Now I felt as 
though I might require my overcoat. There was no dust 
to speak of, and under the low branches of trees and 
passing delightful dooryards all the homey flowers of 
August were blooming in abundance. Now we were fol- 
lowing the Hackensack and the Passaic in spots, seeing 
long, low brick sheds in the former set down in wind 
rhythmed marsh grass, and on the latter towering stacks 
and also simple clubs where canoes were to be seen — 
white, red and green — and a kind of August summer life 
prevailing for those who could not go further. I was 
becoming enamored of our American country life once 
more. 

Paterson, to most New Yorkers, and for that matter 
to most Americans, may be an old story. To me it is 
one of the most interesting pools of life I know. There 
is nothing in Paterson, most people will tell you, save silk 
mills and five-and-ten-cent stores. It is true. Yet to me 
it is a beautiful city in the creative sense — a place in which 
to stage a great novel. These mills — have you ever seen 
them? They line the Passaic river and various smooth 
canals that branch out from it. It was no doubt the well- 
known waterfall and rapids of this river that originally 
drew manufacturers to Paterson, supplied the first mills 
with water, and gave the city its start. Then along came 
steam and all the wonders of modern electricity-driven 
looms. The day we were there they were just complet- 
ing a power plant or city water supply system. The 
ground around the falls had been parked, and standing 



ACROSS THE MEADOWS TO THE PASSAIC 27 

on a new bridge one could look, down into a great round, 
grey-black pit or cup, into which tumbled the water of the 
sturdy little river above. By the drop of eighty or a 
hundred feet it was churned into a white spray which 
bounded back almost to the bridge where we stood. In 
this gay sunlight a rainbow was ever present — a fine five- 
striped thing, which paled and then strengthened as the 
spray thinned or thickened. 

Below, over a great flume of rocks, that stretched out- 
ward toward the city, the expended current was bubbling 
away, spinning past the mills and the bridges. From the 
mills themselves, as one drew near, came the crash of 
shuttles and the thrum of spindles, where thousands of 
workers were immured, weaving the silk which probably 
they might never wear. I could not help thinking, as I 
stood looking at them, of the great strike that had oc- 
curred two years before, in which all sorts of nameless 
brutalities had occurred, brutalities practised by judges, 
manufacturers and the police no less than by the eager 
workers themselves. 

In spite of all the evidence I have that human nature is 
much the same at the bottom as at the top, and that the 
restless striker of today may be the oppressive manufac- 
turer or boss of tomorrow, I cannot help sympathizing 
with the working rank and file. Why should the man at 
the top, I ask myself, want more than a reasonable au- 
thority? Why endless houses, and lands, and stocks, and 
bonds to flaunt a prosperity that he does not need and can- 
not feel? I am convinced that man in toto — the race 
itself — is nothing more nor less as yet than an embryo 
in the womb of something which we cannot see. We are 
to be protected (as a race) and born into something 
(some state) which we cannot as yet understand or even 
feel. We, as individual atoms, may never know, any 
more than the atoms or individual plasm cells which con- 
structed us ever knew. But we race atoms are being 
driven to do something, construct something — (a race 
man or woman, let us say) — and like the atoms in the 
embryo, we are struggling and fetching and carrying. I 



28 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

did not always believe in some one "divine faroff event" 
for the race. I do not accept the adjective divine even 
now. But I do believe that these atoms are not toiling for 
exactly nothing — or at least, that the nothingness is not 
quite as undeniable as it was. There is something back 
of man. An avatar, a devil, anything you will, is trying 
to do something, and man is His medium. His brush. 
His paint. His idea. Against the illimitable space of 
things He is attempting to set forth his vision. Is the 
vision good? Who knows! It may be as bad as that of 
the lowest vaudeville performer clowning it before a 
hoodlum audience. But good or bad, here it is, strug- 
gling to make itself manifest, and we are of it! 

What if it is all a mad, aimless farce, my masters? 
Shan't we clown it all together and make the best of it? 

Ha ha I Ho ho! We are all crazy and He is crazy! 
Ha ha! Ho ho! 

Or do I hear someone crying? 



CHAPTER IV 

THE PIETY AND EGGS OF PATERSON 

But In addition to mills and the falls, Paterson offered 
another subject of conversation. Only recently there had 
been completed there an evangelical revival by one 
"Billy" Sunday, who had addressed from eight to twenty 
thousand people at each meeting in a specially constructed 
tabernacle, and caused from one to five hundred or a 
thousand a day to "hit the trail," as he phrased it, or in 
other words to declare that they were "converted to 
Christ," and hence saved. 

America strikes me as an exceedingly intelligent land 
at times, with its far-flung states, its fine mechanical 
equipment, its good homes and liberal, rather non-inter- 
fering form of government, but when one contemplates 
such a mountebank spectacle as this, what is one to say? 
I suppose one had really better go deeper than America 
and contemplate nature itself. But then what is one to 
say of nature? 

We discussed this while passing various mills and 
brown wooden streets, so poor that they were discour- 
aging. 

"It is curious, but it is just such places as Paterson 
that seem to be afflicted with unreasoning emotions of this 
kind," observed Franklin wearily. "Gather together 
hordes of working people who have little or no skill 
above machines, and then comes the revivalist and waves 
of religion. Look at Pittsburg and Philadelphia. See 
how well Sunday did there. He converted thousands." 

He smiled heavily. 

" 'Billy' Sunday comes from out near your town," vol- 
unteered Speed informatively. "He lives at Winona 
Lake. That's a part of Warsaw now." 

.29 



30 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

"Yes, and he conducts a summer revival right there 
occasionally, I believe," added Franklin, a little vin- 
dictively, I thought. 

"Save me I" I pleaded. "Anyhow, I wasn't born there. 
I only lived there for a little while." 

This revival came directly on the heels of a great 
strike, during which thousands were compelled to obtain 
their food at soup houses, or to report weekly to the local 
officers of the union for some slight dole. The good God 
was giving them wrathful, condemnatory manufacturers, 
and clubbing, cynical police. Who was it, then, that 
"revived" and "hit the trail"? The same who were 
starved and clubbed and lived in camps, and were rail- 
roaded to jail? Or were they the families of the bosses 
and manufacturers, who had suppressed the strike and 
were thankful for past favors (for they eventually won, 
I believe) ? Or was it some intermediate element that 
had nothing to do with manufacturers or workers? 

The day we went through, some Sunday school parade 
was preparing. There were dozens of wagons and auto- 
trucks and automobiles gaily bedecked with flags and 
bunting and Sunday school banners. Hundreds, I might 
almost guess thousands, of children in freshly ironed 
white dresses and gay ribbons, carrying parasols, and 
chaperoned by various serious looking mothers and 
elders, were in these conveyances, all celebrating, pre- 
sumably, the glory and goodness of God ! 

A spectacle like this, I am free to say, invariably causes 
me to scoff. I cannot help smiling at a world that cannot 
devise some really poetical or ethical reason for wor- 
shiping or celebrating or what you will, but must indulge 
in shrines and genuflections and temples to false or im- 
possible ideas or deities. They have made a God of 
Christ, who was at best a humanitarian poet — but not 
on the basis on which he offered himself. Never I They 
had to bind him up with the execrable yah-vah of the 
Hebrews, and make him now a God of mercy, and now a 
God of horror. They had to dig themselves a hell, and 
they still cling to it. They had to secure a church organ- 



THE PIETY AND EGGS OF PATERSON 31 

ization and appoint strutting vicars of Christ to misin- 
terpret him, and all that he believed. This wretched 
mountebank "who came here and converted thousands" 
— think of him with his yapping about hell, his bar-room 
and race-track slang, his base-ball vocabulary. And thou- 
sands of poor worms who could not possibly offer one 
reasonable or intelligible thought concerning their faith 
or history or life, or indeed anything, fall on their knees 
and "accept Christ." And then they pass the collection 
plate and build more temples and conduct more revivals. 

What does the God of our universe want, anyway? 
Slaves? Or beings who attempt to think? Is the fable 
of Prometheus true after all? Is autocracy the true in- 
terpretation of all things — or is this an accidental phase, 
infinitely brief in the long flow of things, and eventually 
to be done away with? I, for one, hope so. 

Beyond Paterson we found a rather good road leading 
to a place called Boonton, via Little Falls, Singac, and 
other smaller towns, and still skirting the banks of the 
Passaic River. In Paterson we had purchased four hard- 
boiled eggs, two pies, four shces of ham and some slices 
of bread, and four bottles of beer, and it being some- 
where near noon we decided to have lunch. The task of 
finding an ideal spot was difficult, for we were in a holi- 
day mood and content with nothing less than perfection. 
Although we were constantly passing idyllic scenes — 
waterfalls, glens, a canal crossing over a stream — none 
would do exactly. In most places there was no means of 
bringing the car near enough to watch it. One spot 
proved of considerable interest, however, for, although 
we did not stay, in spying about we found an old moss- 
covered, red granite block three feet square and at least 
eight feet long, on which was carved a statement to the 
effect that this canal had been completed in 1829, and 
that the following gentlemen, as officers and directors, 
had been responsible. Then followed a long list of names 
— Adoniram this, and Cornelius that, good and true busi- 
ness men all, whose carved symbols were now stuffed with 
mud and dust. This same canal was very familiar to 



32 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

me, I having walked every inch of it from New York to 
the Delaware River during various summer holidays. 
But somehow I had never before come upon this me- 
morial stone. Here some twenty men, of a period so 
late as 1829, caused their names to be graven on a great 
stone which should attest their part in the construction 
of a great canal— a canal reaching from New York Bay 
to the Delaware River-and here lies the record under 
dust and vines ! The canal itself is now entirely obsolete. 
Although the State of New Jersey annually spends some 
little money to keep it clean, it is rarely if ever used by 
boats. It was designed originally to bring hard coal from 
that same region around Wilkes-Barre and Scranton, to- 
ward which we were speeding. A powerful railroad cor- 
poration crept in, paralleled it, and destroyed it. 1 his 
same corporation, eager to make its work complete, and 
thinking that the mere existence of the canal might some 
day cause it to be revived, and wanting no water competi- 
tion in the carrying of coal, had a bill introduced into the 
State legislature of New Jersey, ordering or at least 
sanctioning that it should be filled in, in places. Some 
citizens objected, several newspapers cried out, and so the 
bill was dropped. But you may walk along a canal cost- 
ing originally fifty million dollars, and still ornamented 
at regular intervals with locks and planes, and never en- 
counter anything larger than a canoe. Pretty farm 
houses face it now; door yards come down to the very 
water; ducks and swans float on its surface and cattle 
graze nearby. I have spent as much as two long spring- 
times idling along its banks. It is beautiful— but it is 

useless 

We 'did eventually come to a place that suited us ex- 
actly for our picnic. The river we were following wid- 
ened at this point and skirted so near the road that it was 
no trouble to have our machine near at hand and still sit 
under the trees by the waterside. Cottages and tents 
were sprinkled cheerily along the farther shore, and the 
river was dotted with canoes and punts of various colors. 
Under a group of trees we stepped out and spread our 



THE PIETY AND EGGS OF PATERSON 33 

feast It was all so lovely that it seemed a bit out of 
fairyland or a sketch by Watteau. Franklin being a 
Chnstian Scientist, it was his duty, as I explained to him, 
to think any flies or mosquitoes away— to "realize" 
for us all that they could not be, and so leave us to enjoy 
our meal m peace. Miss H was to be the back- 
ground of perfection, the color spot, the proof of holi- 
day like al the lad.es in Watteau and Boucher The 
machine and Speed, his cap adjusted to a rakish angle, 
were to prove that we were gentlemen of leisure. On 
leaving New York I saw that he had a moustache capable 
of that upward twist so admired of the German Emperor 
and so now I began to urge him to make the ends stand 
up so that he would be the embodiment of the distingue. 
Nothing loath, he complied smilingly, that same collie- 
I.ke smile in his eyes that I so much enjoy. 

It was Franklin who had purchased the eggs He had 
gone across the street in Paterson, his belted dust-coat 
swingmg most impressively, and entering a little quick 
lunch room, had purchased these same eggs. Afterward 
he admitted that as he was leaving he noticed the Mk 
moustached face of a cook and the villainous head of a 
scullion peering after him from a sort of cook's galley 
window with what seemed to him "a rumor of a sardonic 
smile. But suspecting nothing, he went his way. Now 

LT Hh'h '> 'rr' fl^''' '^^'' ^"'^ ^°-hing it with 
alt, bit into It. Then I slowly turned my head, extracted 

nLv"^ '' I could silently with a paper napkin, and de- 
posited It with an air of great peace upon the ground. I 
did not propose to be the butt of any ribald remarks. 

rheTu L f^ ^'■'"''''" preparing his. He crushed 
h shell and after stripping the glistening surface dipped 
It m salt. I wondered would it be good. Then he bit 
into It and paused, took up a napkin with a very graceful 
and philosophic air, and wiped his mouth. / was no 
quite sure what had happened 

wiZn ohT' '^^ ^°°^-" ^' '''"^ ^"=^"y' ^-^rnining me 
witn an odd expression. 

"It was not," I replied. "The most villainously bad 



34 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

egg I have had in years. And here it goes, straight to 
the fishes." 

I threw it. j at- xj 

"Well, they can have mine," observed Miss t± , 

^"'"Whfrdo'you know about that?" exclaimed Speed, 
who was sitting some distance from the rest of us and 
consuming his share. "I think the man that sold you 
those ought to be taken out and slapped gently, and he 
threw his away. "Say! And four of them all at once 
too. I'd just like to get a camera and photograph him. 

He's a bird, he is." . • ^u„ 

There was something amazmgly comic to me in the 
very sound of Speed's voice. I cannot indicate just what, 
but his attempt at scorn was so inadequate, so childlike^ 

"Well, anyhow, the fishes won't mind, I said. 1 hey 
like nice, fresh Franklin eggs. Franklin is their best 
friend, aren't you, Franklin? You love fishes, don t 

^°Booth sat there, his esoteric faith in the weUbeing of 
everything permitting him to smile a gentle, tolerant 

^"""You know, I wondered why those two fellows seemed 
to smile at me," he finally commented. "They must have 

done this on purpose." . „ „ , j nu ■ ,.;o^ 

"Oh no," I replied, "not to a full fledged Christian 
Scientist! Never! These eggs must be perfect.^ Ihe 
error is with us. We have thou^hl bad eggs, that s all. 

We got up and tossed the empty beer bottles f^^the 
stream, trying to sink them with stones._ I think I added 
one hundred stones to the bed of the river without sink- 
ing a single bottle. Speed threw in a rock pretending it 
was a bottle and I even threw at that before discovering 
my mistake. Finally we climbed into our car and sped 
onward, new joys always glimmering in the distance. 

"Just to think," I said to myself, "there are to be two 
whole weeks of this in this glorious August weather. 
What lovely things we shall see !" 



CHAPTER V 

ACROSS THE DELAWARE 

The afternoon run was even more delightful than 
that of the morning. Yet one does not really get free of 
New York — its bustle and thickness of traffic — until one 
gets west of Paterson, which is twentyfive miles west, 
and not even then. New York is so all embracing. It 
is supposed to be chiefly represented by Manhattan 
Island, but the feel of it really extends to the Delaware 
Water Gap, one hundred miles west, as it does to the 
eastern end of Long Island, one hundred miles east, and 
to Philadelphia, one hundred miles south, or Albany, 
one hundred miles north. It is all New York. 

But west of Paterson and Boonton the surge of traffic 
was beginning to diminish, and we were beginning to taste 
the real country. Not so many autotrucks and wagons 
were encountered here, though automobiles proper were 
even more numerous, if anything. This was a wealthy 
residence section we were traversing, with large hand- 
some machines as common as wagons elsewhere, and the 
occupants looked their material prosperity. The roads, 
too, as far as Dover, our next large town, thirty miles 
on, were beautiful — smooth, grey and white macadam, 
lined mostly with kempt lawns, handsome hedges, charm- 
ing dwellings, and now and then yellow fields of wheat 
or oats or rye, with intermediate acres of tall, ripe corn. 
I never saw better fields of grain, and remembered read- 
ing in the papers that this was a banner season for crops. 
The sky, too, was wholly entrancing, a clear blue, with 
great, fleecy clouds sailing along in the distance like im- 
mense hills or ships. We passed various small hotels 
and summer cottages, nesthng among these low hills, 
where summer boarders were sitting on verandas, read- 

35 



36 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

ing books or swinging in hammocks or crocheting, Amer- 
ican fashion, in rocking chairs. All my dread of the con- 
ventional American family arose as I surveyed them, for 
somehow, as idyllic as all this might appear on the 
surface, it smacked the least bit of the doldrums. 
Youths and maidens playing croquet and tennis, mother 
(and much more rarely father) seated near, reading and 
watching. The three regular meals, the regular nine 
o'clock hour for retiring! Well, I was glad we were 
making forty miles an hour. 

As we passed through Dover it was three o'clock. As 
we passed Hopatcong, after pausing to sketch a bridge 
over the canal, it was nearing four. There were pauses 
constantly which interrupted our Speed. Now it was a 
flock of birds flying over a pool, all their fluttering wings 
reflected in the water, and Franklin had to get out and 
make a pencil note of it. Now a lovely view over some 
distant hills, a small town in a valley, a factory stack by 
some water side. 

"Say, do these people here ever expect to get to In- 
diana?" remarked Speed in an aside to Miss H . 

We had to stop in Dover — a city of thirty thousand — 
at the principal drug store, for a glass of ice cream soda. 
We had to stop at Hopatcong and get a time table in 

order to learn whether Miss H could get a train in 

from the Water Gap later in the evening. We had to 
stop and admire a garden of goldenglows and old fash- 
ioned August flowers. 

Beyond Hopatcong we began to realize that we would 
no more than make the Water Gap this day. The hills 
and valleys were becoming more marked, the roads more 
difficult to ascend. As we passed Stanhope, a small town 
beyond Hopatcong, we got on the wrong road and had 
to return, a common subsequent experience. Beyond 
Stanhope we petitioned one family group — a mother and 
three children — for some water, and were refused. A 
half mile further on, seeing a small iron pump on a lawn, 
we stopped again. A lean, dreamy woman came out and 
we asked her. "Yes, surely," she replied and re-entered 



ACROSS THE DELAWARE 37 

the house, returning with a blue pitcher. Chained to a 
nearby tree a collie bitch which looked for all the world 
like a fox jumped and barked for joy. 

"Are you going to Hackettstown?" asked our hostess 
simply. 

"We're going through to Indiana," confided Franklin 
in a neighborly fashion. 

A look of childlike wonder at the far off came into the 
woman's voice and eyes. "To Indiana?" she replied. 
"That's a long way, isn't it?" 

"Oh, about nine hundred miles," volunteered Speed 
briskly. 

As we sped away — vain of our exploit, I fancy — she 
stood there, pitcher in hand, looking after us. I wished 
heartily she might ride all the long distances her moods 
might crave. "Only," I thought, "would it be a fair 
exchange for all her delightsome wonder?" 

This side of Hackettstown we careened along a ridge 
under beautiful trees surveying someone's splendid coun- 
try estate, with a great house, a lake and hills of sheep. 
On the other side of Hackettstown we had a blow out 
and had to stop and change a tire. A Russian moiijik, 
transplanted to America and farming in this region, inter- 
ested me. A reaper whirring in a splendid field of grain 
informed me that we were abroad at harvest time — we 
would see much reaping then. While the wheel was being 
repaired I picked up a scrap of newspaper lying on the 
road. It was of recent issue and contained an advertise- 
ment of a great farm for sale which read "Winter is no 
time to look at a farm, for then everything is out of com- 
mission and you cannot tell what a farm is worth. Spring 
is a dangerous time, for then everything is at its best, and 
you are apt to be deceived by fields and houses which 
later you would not think of buying. Mid-August is the 
ideal time. Everything is bearing by then. If a field or 
a yard or a house or cattle look good at that time you 
may be sure that they will look as good or better at 
others. Examine In mid-August. Examine now." 

"Ah," I said, "now I shall see this eastern half of the 



38 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

United States at the best time. If it looks good now I 
shall know pretty well how good eastern America is 

And so we sped on, passing a little arther on a for- 
lorn decadent, gloomy hamlet about which I wanted to 
IrTt a poem ^r an essay. Edgar Allan Poe might have 
lived here and written "The Raven." The house of 
Usher might have been a dwelling in one of these hypo- 
chondriacal streets. They were so dim and g oomy and 
sad Still farther on as we neared the Delaware we 
came into a mountain country which seemed almost en- 
tirelv devoted to cattle and the dairy business. It was 
not an ultra prosperous land— what mountain country is .^ 
You can find it on the map if you choose, lying between 
Philllpsburg and the river. . 

Something— perhaps the approach of evening, perhaps 
the gloom of great hills which make darksome valleys 
wherein lurk early shadows and cool, damp airs; perhaps 
the tinkle of cowbells and the lowing of homing herds; 
perhaps the presence of dooryards where laborers and 
farmers, newly returned from work, were washing their 
hands in pans outside of kitchen doors; or the smoke curl 
of evening fires from chimneys, or the glint of evenmg 
lamps through doors and windows-was very touching 
about all this; anyhow, as we sped along I was grea ly 
moved. Life orchestrates itself at times so perfectly. 
It sines like a prima donna of humble joys, and happy 
homes and simple tasks. It creates like a great virtuoso 
bow in hand, or fingers upon invisible keys a supreme 
illusion. The heart hurts; one's eyes fill with tears. We 
skirted great hills so close that at times, as one looked up, 
it seemed as though they might come_ crashing down on 
us We passed thick forests where in this mid-August 
weather, one could look into deep shadows, feeling the 
ancient childish terror of the woods and of the dark. 1 
looked up a cliff side— very high up— and saw a railroad 
station labeled Manunka-Chunk. I looked into a 
barnyard and saw pigs grunting over corn and swill, and 
a few chickens trying to flutter up into a low tree, ihe 
night was nigh. 



i^i?Mi«!,„^..tr 




'4 

n 



THE OLD ESSEX AND MuRRIS CANAL 



ACROSS THE DELAWARE 39 

Presently, in this sweet gloom we reached a ferry which 
crosses the river somewhere near the Water Gap and 
which we were induced to approach because we knew of 
no bridge. On the opposite side, anchored to a wire 
which crossed the river, was a low flat punt, which looked 
for all the world like a shallow saucepan. We called 
"Yoho!" and back came the answer "All right!" Pres- 
ently the punt came over and in a silvery twilight Speed 
maneuvered the car onto the craft. A tall, lank yokel 
greeted us. 

"Coin' to the Water Gap?" 

"Yes, how far is it?" 

"Seven miles." 

"What time is it?" 

"Seven o'clock." 

That gave us an hour in which to make Miss H 's 

train. 

"That's Pennsylvania over there, isn't it?" 

"Yep, that's Pennsylvania. There ain't nothing in 
New Jersey 'cept cows and mountains." 

He grinned as though he had made a great joke. 

Speed, as usual, was examining the engine. Franklin 
and I were gazing enraptured at the stately hills which 
sentinel this stream. In the distance was the Water Gap, 
a great cleft in the hills where in unrecorded days the 
river is believed to have cut its way through. One could 
see the vast masonry of some bridge which had been con- 
structed farther up the stream. 

We clambered up the bank on the farther side, the car 
making a great noise. In this sweet twilight with fireflies 
and spirals of gnats and "pinchin' bugs," as Speed called 
them, we tore the remainder of the distance, the eyes of 
the car glowing like great flames. Along this river road 
we encountered endless groups of strolling summer board- 
ers — girls with their arms about each other, quiescent 
women and older maids idling in the evening damp. 

"A land of summer hotels this, and summer boarding 
houses," I said. 



40 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

"Those are all old maids or school teachers," insisted 
Speed with Indiana assurance, "or I'll eat my hat." 

In the midst of our flight Speed would tell stories, 
tossing them back in the wind and perfumes. Miss 

H was singing "There Was an Old Soldier." In 

no time at all — though not before it was dark — we were 
entering a region compact of automobiles, gasoline 
smoke, and half concealed hotel windows and balconies 
which seemed to clamber up cliffs and disappear into the 
skies. Below us, under a cliff, ran a railroad, its freight 
and passenger trains seeming to thunder ominously near. 
We were, as I could see, high on some embankment or 
shelf cut in the hill. Presently we turned into a square 
or open space which opened out at the foot of the hill, and 
there appeared a huge caravansary. The Kittatinny, with 
a fountain and basin in the foreground which imitated the 
colored waters of the Orient. Lackeys were there to take 

our bags — only, since Miss H had to make her train, 

we had to go a mile farther on to the station under the 

hill. To give Franklin and Miss H time Speed 

parked the car somewhere near the station and I went to 
look for colored picture cards. 

I wandered off into a region of lesser hotels and stores 
— the usual clutter of American mountain resort gayety. 
It brought back to me Tannersville and Haines Corners 
in the Catskills, Excelsior Springs and the Hot Springs of 
Virginia and the Ozarks. American summer mountain 
life Is so naive, so gauche, so early Victorian. Nothing 
could be duller, safer, more commonplace apparently, 
and yet with such a lilt running through it, than this scene. 
Here were windows of restaurants or ball rooms or hotel 
promenades, all opened to the cool mountain air and all 
gaily lighted. An orchestra was to be heard crooning 
here and there. The one street was full of idlers, sum- 
mer cottagers, hotel guests, the natives — promenading. 
Many electric lamps cast hard shadows provided by the 
trees. It was all so delightfully cool and fragrant. All 
these maidens were so bent on making catches, appar- 
ently, so earnest to attract attention. They were decked 



ACROSS THE DELAWARE 41 

out in all the fineries and fripperies of the American sum- 
mer resort scene. I never saw more diaphanous draper- 
ies — more frail pinks, blues, yellows, creams. All the 
brows of all the maidens seemed to be be-ribboned. All 
the shoulders were flung about with light gauzy shawls. 
Noses were powdered, lips faintly rouged, perhaps. The 
air was vibrant with a kind of mating note — or search. 

"Well, well," I exclaimed, and bought me all the truly 
indicative postcards I could find. 



CHAPTER VI 

AN AMERICAN SUMMER RESORT 

I HAVE no quarrel with American summer resorts as 
such — they are as good as any — but I must confess that 
scenes like this do not move me as they once did. I can 
well recall the time — and that not so many years ago — 
when this one would have set me tingling, left me yearn- 
ing with a voiceless, indescribable pain. Life does such 
queer things to one. It takes one's utmost passions of 
five years ago and puts them out like a spent fire. Stand- 
ing in this almost operatic street, I did my best to con- 
trast my feelings with those of twenty, fifteen and even 
ten years before. What had come over the spirit of my 
dreams? Well, twenty years before I knew nothing 
about love, actually — ten years before I was not satisfied. 
Was that it? Not exactly — no — I could not say that it 
was. But now at least these maidens and this somewhat 
banal stage setting were not to be accepted by me, at 
least, at the value which unsophistication and youth place 
on them. The scene was gay and lovely and innocent 
really. One could feel the wonder of it. But the stage- 
craft was a little too obvious. 

Fifteen years before (or even ten) these gauche maid- 
ens idling along would have seemed most fascinating. 
Now the brow bands and diaphanous draperies and pink 
and blue and green slippers were almost like trite stage 
properties. Fifteen or twenty years before I would have 
been ready to exclaim with any of the hundred youths I 
saw bustling about here, yearning with their eyes: "Oh, 
my goddess! Oh, my Venus! Oh, my perfect divinity! 
But deign to cast one encouraging glance upon me, your 
devoted slave, and I will grovel at your feet. Here is 
my heart and hand and my most sacred vow — and my 

42 



AN AMERICAN SUMMER RESORT 43 

pocket book. I will work for you, slave for you, die for 
you. Every night for the next two thousand nights of 
my life, all my life in fact, I will come home regularly 
from my small job and place all my earnings and hopes 
and fears in your hands. I will build a house and I will 
run a store. I will do anything to make you happy. We 
will have three, seven, nine children. I will spade a gar- 
den each spring, bring home a lawnmower and cut the 
grass. I will prove thoroughly domesticated and never 
look at another woman." 

That, in my nonage, was the way I used to feel. 

And as I looked about me I could see much the same 
emotions at work here. These young cubs — how enrap- 
tured they were; how truly like young puppies with still 
blinded eyes ! The air was redolent of this illusion. That 
was why the windows and balconies were hung with Jap- 
anese lanterns. That was why the orchestras were play- 
ing so — divinely! To me now it tanged rather hollowly 
at moments, like a poor show. I couldn't help seeing that 
the maidens weren't divinities at all, that most of them 
were the dullest, most selfish, most shallow and strawy 
mannikinesses one could expect to find. Poor little half- 
equipped actors and actresses. 

"But even so," I said to myself, "this is the best the 
master of the show has to offer. He is at most a strolling 
player of limited equipment. Perhaps elsewhere, in some 
other part of the universe, there may be a showman who 
can do better, who has a bigger, better company. But 
these " 

I returned to the hotel and waited for Franklin. We 
were assigned a comfortable room on the second or third 
floor, I forget which, down a mile of corridor. Supper 
in the grill cost us five dollars. The next morning break- 
fast in the Persian breakfast room cost us three more. 
But that evening we had the privilege of sitting on a bal- 
cony and watching a herd of deer come down to a wire 
fence and eat grass in the glare of an adjacent arc light. 
We had the joy of observing the colored fountains 
(quenched at twelve) and seeing the motoring parties 



44 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

come tearing up or go flying past, wild with a nameless 
gayet\-. In the parlors, the music rooms, the miles of 
promenade balconies, were hosts of rich mammas and 
daughters — the former nearly all fat, the latter all prom- 
ising to be, and a little gross. For the life of me I could 
not help but think of breweries, distilleries, soap fac- 
tories, furniture factories, stove companies and the like. 
\Yhere did all these people come from? Where did they 
all get the money to stay here weeks and weeks at six, 
eight, and even fifteen and twenty a day a person? Our 
poor little six dollar rooms ! Good Heavens ! Some of 
them had suites with three baths. Think of all the fac- 
tories, the purpose of which (aside from supplying the 
world with washtubs, flatirons, sealing wax. etc.) was to 
supply these elderly and youthful females with plumpness 
and fine raiment. 

While we were in the grill eating our rather late din- 
ner (the Imperial Egyptian dining room was closed). 
several families strolled in, "pa," in one case, a frail, pale, 
meditative, speculative little man who seemed about as 
much at home in his dressy cutaway coat as a sheep would 
in a lion's skin. He was so ver>' small and fidget^', but 
had without doubt built up a wholesale grocery- or an iron 
foundry or something of that sort. And "ma" was so 
short and. aggressive, with such a firm chin and such 
steady eyes. "Ma" had supplied "pa" with much of his 
fighting courage, you could see that. As I looked at "pa" 
I wondered how many thousand things he had been 
driven to do to escape her wrath, even to coming up here 
in August and wearing a cutaway coat and a stiff white 
shirt and hard cufis and collars. He did look as though 
he would prefer some quiet small town veranda and his 
daily newspaper. 

And then there was "Cerise" or "Muriel" or "Alber- 
tina" [1 am sure she had some such name) , sitting between 
her parents and obWously speculating as to her fate. 
Back at Wilson's Corner there may have been some youth 
at some time or other who thought her divine and im- 



AN AMERICAN SUMMER RESORT 45 

plored her to look with favor on his suit, but behold "pa" 
was getting rich and she was not for such as him. 

"Jus' you let him be," I could hear her mother coun- 
seling. "Don't you have anything to do with him. We're 
getting on and next summer we're going up to the Kitta- 
tinny. You're sure to meet somebody there." 

And so here they were — Cerise dressed in the best 
that Scranton or Wilkes-Barre or even New York could 
afford. Such organdies, voiles, Swisses, silk crepes — 
trunks full of them, no doubt! Her plump arms were 
quite bare, shoulders partly so, her hair done in a novel 
way, white satin shoes were on her feet — oh dear ! oh 
dear! She looked dull and uninteresting and meaty. 

But think of Harvey Anstruther Kupfermacher, son 
of the celebrated trunk manufacturer of Punxsutawney, 
who will shortly arrive and wed her! It will be a "love 
match from the first." The papers of Troy, Schenectady, 
and Utica will be full of it. There will be a grand 
church wedding. The happy couple will summer in the 
Adirondacks or the Blue Ridge. If the trunk factory 
and the iron foundry continue successful some day they 
may even venture New York. 

"Wilson's Corner? Well I guess not!" 

There was another family, the pater familias large and 
heavy, with big hands, big feet, a bursting pink complex- 
ion, and a vociferous grey suit. "Pa" leads his proces- 
sion. "Ma" is very simple; and daughter is compara- 
tively interesting, and rather sweet. "Pa" is going to 
show by living at the Kittatinny what it means to work 
hard and save your money and fight the labor unions and 
push the little fellow to the wall. "Pa" thinks, actually, 
that if he gets very rich — richer and richer — somehow 
he is going to be supremely happy. Money is going to 
do it. "Yessiree, money can do anything, good old Amer- 
ican dollars. Money can build a fine house, money can 
buy a fine auto, money can give one a splendid office desk, 
money can hire obsequious factotums, money can make 
everyone pleasant and agreeable. Here I sit," says Pa, 
"right in the grill room of the Kittatinny. Outside are 



46 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

colored fountains. My shoes are new. My clothes are 
of the best. I have an auto. What do I lack?" 

"Not a thing, Pa," I wanted to answer, "save certain 
delicacies of perception, which you will never miss." 

" 'Soul, take thine ease; eat, drink and be merry.' " 

The next morning we were up bright and early for a 
long drive. Owing to my bumptiousness in having set 
aside the regular route of the trip I could see that Frank- 
lin was now somewhat depending on me to complete my 
career as a manager and decide when and where to go. 
My sole idea was to cut direct through Pennsylvania, but 
when I consulted a large map which hung on the wall of 
the baggage room of the Kittatinny I was not so sure. 
It was about six feet long and two feet high and showed 
nothing but mountains, mountains, mountains, and no 
towns, let alone cities of any size. We began to speculate 
concerning Pennsylvania as a state, but meanwhile I con- 
sulted our "Scenic Route" map. This led us but a little 
way into Pennsylvania before it cut due north to Bing- 
hamton, and the socalled "good roads" of New York 
State. That did not please me at all. At any rate, after 
consulting with a most discouraging porter who seemed 
to be sure that there were no good roads in Pennsylvania, 
I consoled myself with the thought that Wilkes-Barre 
and Scranton were west of us, and that the "Scenic Route" 
led through these places. We might go to Wilkes-Barre 
or Scranton and then consult with the local automobile 
association, who could give us further information. 
Quite diplomatically I persuaded Franklin to do that. 

The difficulty with this plan was that it left us worry- 
ing over roads, for, after all, the best machine, as anyone 
knows who has traveled much by automobiles, is a deli- 
cate organism. Given good roads it can seemingly roll 
on forever at top speed. Enter on a poor one and all the 
ills that flesh or machinery is heir to seem at once to mani- 
fest themselves. A little mud and water and you are in 
danger of skidding into kingdom come. A few ruts and 
you feel momentarily as though you were going to be 



AN AMERICAN SUMMER RESORT 47 

thrown into high heaven. A bad patch of rocks and holes 
and you soon discover where all the weak places in your 
bones and muscles are. Punctures eventuate from no- 
where. Blowouts arrive one after another with sickening 
frequency. The best of engines snort and growl on sharp 
grades. Going down a steep hill a three-thousand-pound 
car makes you think always — "My God! what if some- 
thing should break!" Then a spring may snap, a screw 
work loose somewhere. 

But before we left the Water Gap what joys of obser- 
vation were not mine! This was such an idle tour and 
such idle atmosphere. There was really no great need 
for hurry, as we realized once we got started, and I was 
desirous of taking our time, as was Franklin, though hav- 
ing no wish to stay long anywhere. We breakfasted 
leisurely while Speed, somewhere, was doctoring up our 
tires. Then we strolled out into this summer village, 
seeing the Water Gappers get abroad thus early. The 
town looked as kempt by day as it did by night. Our fat 
visitors of heavy purses were still in bed in the great 
hotels. Instead you saw the small town American busy 
about his chores; an ancient dame, for instance, in black 
bonnet and shawl, driving a lean horse and buggy, the 
latter containing three milk cans all labeled "Sunset Farm 
Dairy Co."; a humpnosed, thinbodied, angular grocer, 
or general store keeper, sweeping off his sidewalk and 
dusting off his counters; various citizens in "vests" and 
shirt sleeves crossing the heavily oiled roads at various 
angles and exchanging the customary American morning 
greetings : 

"Howdy, Jake?" 

"Hi, Si, been down t' the barn yet?" 

"Did Ed get that wrench he was lookin' for?" 

"Think so, yep." 

"Well, look at old Skeeter Cheevers comin' along, will 
yuh" — this last apropos of some hobbling septuagenarian 
with a willow basket. 

I heaved a kind of sigh of relief. I was out of New 



48 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

York and back home, as it were — even here at the Dela- 
ware River — so near does the west come to the east. 

Sitting in willow chairs in front of a garage where 
Speed was looking for a special kind of oil which evi- 
dently the more pretentious hotel could not or would not 
supply, Franklin and I discussed the things we had heard 
and seen. I think I drew a parallel between this hotel 
here and similar hotels at Monte Carlo and Nice, where 
the prices would be no higher, if so high. 

It so happened that in the morning, when I had been 
dressing, there had been a knocking at the door of the 
next room, and listening I had heard a man's voice calling 
"Ma! Ma! Have you got an undershirt in there 

for me?" . 

I looked out to see a tall, greyheaded man of sixty 
or more, very intelligent and very forceful looking, a real 
American business chief. 

"Yes," came the answer after a moment. "Wait a 
minute. I think there's one in Ida's satchel. Is Harry 
up yet?" 

"Yes, he's gone out. 

This was at six A. M. Here stood the American in 
the pretentious hall, his suspenders down, meekly impor- 
tuning his wife through the closed door. 

Imagine this at Nice, or Cannes, or Trouvillel 
And then the lackadaisical store keeper where I bought 
my postcards. 

"Need any stamps, cap?" was his genial inquiry. 
Why the "cap"? An American civility — the equiva- 
lent of Mister, Monsieur, Sir, — anything you please. 

I had of late been reading much magazine sociology 
of the kind that is labeled "The Menace of Immigration," 
etc. I was saying to Franklin that I had been fast commg 
to believe that America, east, west, north, and south, was 
being overrun by foreigners who were completely chang- 
ing the American character, the American facial appear- 
ance, the American everything. Do you recall the Hans 
Christian Andersen story of the child who saw the kmg 
naked? I was inclined to be that child. I could not see, 



AN AMERICAN SUMMER RESORT 49 

from the first hundred miles or so we had traveled, that 
there was any truth in the assertions of these magazine 
sociologists. Franklin and I agreed that we could see no 
change in American character here, or anywhere, though 
it might be well to look sharply into this matter as we 
went along. In the cities there were thousands of for- 
eigners, but they were not unamericanizing the cities, 
and I was not prepared to believe that they are doing any 
worse by the small towns. Certainly there was no evi- 
dence of it here at the Water Gap. All was almost "of- 
fensively American," as an Englishman would say. The 
"caps," "docs," and "howdys" were as common here as 
in — Indiana, for instance — so Franklin seemed to think 
— and he lives in Indiana a goodly part of the year. In 
the Water Gap and Stroudsburg, and various towns here- 
about where, because of the various summer hotels and 
cottages, one might expect a sprinkling of the foreign ele- 
ment, at least in the capacity of servitors, in the streets 
and stores, yet they were not even noticeably dotted with 
them. If all that was American is being wiped out the 
tide had not yet reached northern New Jersey or eastern 
Pennsylvania. I began to take heart. 



CHAPTER VII 

THE PENNSYLVANIANS 

And then there was this matter of Pennsylvania and 
its rumored poor roads to consider, and the smallness 
and non-celebrity of its population, considering the vast- 
ness of its territory — all of which consumed at least an 
hour of words, once we were started. This matter inter- 
ested us greatly, for now that we had come to think of it 
we could not recall anyone in American political history 
or art or science who had come from Pennsylvania. 
William Penn (a foreigner) occurred to me, Benjamin 
Franklin and a certain Civil War governor of the name 
of Cameron, and there I stuck. Certain financial geniuses, 
as Franklin was quick to point out, had made money 
there; a Carnegie, Scotchman; Frick, an American; 
Widener, an American; Dolan, an Irishman; Elkins, and 
others; although, as we both agreed, America could not 
be vastly proud of these. The taint of greed or graft 
seemed to hang heavy in their wake. 

"But where are the poets, writers, painters?" asked 
Franklin. 

I paused. Not a name occurred to me. 

"What Pennsylvanian ever did anything?" I asked. 
"Here is a state one hundred and sixty miles wide, and 
more than three hundred miles long from east to west, 
and with five or six fair-sized cities in it, and not a name 1" 
We tried to explain it on the ground that mountainous 
countries are never prolific of celebrities, but neither of us 
seemed to know very much about mountainous countries, 
and so we finally dropped the subject. 

But what about Pennsylvania, anyhow? Why hasn't 
it produced anything in particular? How many millions 
of men must live and die before a real figure arises? Or 
do we need figures? Are just men better? 

50 



THE PENNSYLVANIANS 51 

The run from the Water Gap to Factoryville was ac- 
complished under varying conditions. The day promised 
to be fine, a milky, hazy atmosphere which was still warm 
and bright like an opal. We were all in the best of spirits, 
Speed whistling gaily to himself as we raced along. Our 
way led first through a string of small towns set in great 
hills or mountains — Stroudsburg, Bartonsville, Tanners- 
ville, Swiftwater. We were trying to make up our minds 
as we rode whether we would cut Wilkes-Barre, since, 
according to our map, it appeared to be considerably 
south of a due west course, or whether, because of its 
repute as a coal center, we would go there. Something, 
a sense of mountains and picturesque valleys, lured me 
on. I was for going to Wilkes-Barre if it took us as 
much as fifty miles out of our course. 

But meanwhile our enjoyment in seeing Pennsylvania 
was such that we did not need to worry very much over 
its lack of human distinction. Everything appeared to be 
beautiful to such casual travelers. As we climbed and 
climbed out of the Water Gap, we felt a distinct change 
between the life of New Jersey and that of this hilly, 
almost mountainous land. Great slopes rose on either 
hand. We came upon long stretches of woodland and 
barren, rocky fields. The country houses from here to 
Wilkes-Barre, which we finally reached, were by no means 
so prosperous. Stroudsburg seemed a stringy, mountain- 
top town, composed principally of summer hotels, facing 
the principal street, hotels and boarding houses. Bar- 
tonsville and Tannersville, both much smaller, were much 
the same. The air was much lighter here, almost feath- 
ery compared to that of the lowlands farther east. But 
the barns and houses and stock were so poor. At Swift- 
water, another small town or crossroads, we came to a 
wood so dense, so deep, so black and even purple in its 
shades that we exclaimed in surprise. The sun was still 
shining in its opalescent way, but in here was a wonder of 
rare darks and solitudes which seemed like the depths 
of some untenanted cathedral at nightfall. And there 
was a river or stream somewhere nearby, for stopping the 



$2 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

car we could hear it tumbling over rough stones. We 
dismounted, quite spontaneously, and without any "shall 
we's," and wandered into this bit of forest which was 
such a splendid natural wonder. Under these heavy 
cedars and tangled vines all was still, save for the river, 
and at the foot of trees, in a mulch of rich earth, were 
growing whole colonies of Indian pipes, those rare fra- 
gile, waxylooking orchids. Neither Franklin nor Speed 
had ever seen any and I aired my knowledge with great 
gusto. Speed was quite taken aback by the fact that they 
really looked like pipes with a small fire In their bowls. 
We sat down — it was too wonderful to leave Instantly. I 
felt that I must come back here some time and camp. 

It was about here that our second blowout occurred. 
Back in Stroudsburg, passing through the principal street, 
I had spied a horseshoe lying In the road — a new shoe — 
and jumped out to get it as a sign of good luck. For this 
I was rewarded by an indulgent glance from Franklin and 
considerable show of sympathetic interest from Speed. 
The latter obviously shared my belief in horseshoes as 
omens of good fortune. He promptly hung it over the 
speedometer, but alas, within the next three-quarters of 
an hour this first breakdown occurred. Speed was just 
saying that now he was sure he would get through safely, 
and I was smiling comfortably to think that my life was 
thus charmingly guarded, when "whee!" — have you 
heard a whistle blowout? It sounds like a spent bullet 
instead of a revolver shot. Out we climbed to contem- 
plate a large jagged rent In the rim of the tire and the 
loss of fifteen minutes. This rather dampened my ardor 
for my omen. Luck signs and omens are rather difficult 
things at best, for one can really never connect the result 
with the fact. I have the most disturbing difficulties with 
my luck signs. A cross-eyed man or boy should mean 
immediate good luck, but alas, I have seen scores and 
scores of cross-eyed boys at one time and another and 
yet my life seemed to go on no better than usual. Cross- 
eyed women should spell Immediate disaster, but to my 
intense satisfaction I am able to report that this does 



THE PENNSYLVANIANS 53 

not seem to be invariably true. Then Franklin and I sat 
back in the cushions and began to discuss blowouts In 
general and the mystic power of mind to control such 
matters — the esoteric or metaphysical knowledge that 
there is no such thing as evil and that blowouts really 
cannot occur. 

This brings me again to Christian Science, which some- 
how hung over this whole tour, not so much as a relig- 
ious irritant as a pleasant safeguard. It wasn't religious 
or obtrusive at all. Franklin, as I have said, is inclined 
to believe that there is no evil, though he is perfectly 
willing to admit that the material appearances seem all 
against that assumption at times. 

"It's a curious thing," he said to me and Speed, "but 
that makes the fifth blowout to occur in that particular 
wheel. All the trouble we have had this spring and sum- 
mer has been in that particular corner of the wagon. I 
don't understand it quite. It isn't because we have been 
using poor tires on that wheel or any other. As a matter 
of fact I put a set of new Silvertown cord tires on the 
wheels last May. It's just that particular wheel." 

He gazed meditatively at the serene hills around us, 
and I volunteered that it might be "just accident." I 
could see by Franklin's face that he considered it a lesion 
in the understanding of truth. 

"It may be," he said. "Still you'll admit it's a little 
curious." 

A little later on we ran on to a wonderful tableland, 
high up in the mountains, where were a lake, a golf course, 
a perfect macadam road, and interesting inns and cot- 
tages — quite like an ideal suburban section of a great city. 
As we neared a four corners or railway station center I 
spied there one of those peculiarly constructed wagons in- 
tended originally to haul hay, latterly to convey straw- 
ride parties around the country in mountain resorts — a 
diversion which seems never to lose its charm for the 
young. This one, or rather three, for there turned out to 
be three in a row, was surrounded by a great group of 
young girls, as I thought, all of them in short skirts and 



54 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

with a sort of gymnasium costume which seemed to indi- 
cate that they were going out to indulge in outdoor ex- 
ercises. 

As we drew nearer we discovered, however, to our as- 
tonishment, that a fair proportion were women over forty 
or fifty. It seemed more like a school with many moni- 
tors than a mountain outing. 

Contemplating this very modern show of arms and 
legs, I felt that we had come a very long way from the 
puritanic views of the region in which I had been raised 
if an inland summer resort permitted this freedom of 
appearance. In my day the idea of any woman, young 
or old, save those under fourteen, permitting anything 
more than their shoe tip and ankles to be seen was not 
to be thought of. And here were mothers and spinsters 
of forty and fifty as freely garbed as any bather at a sum- 
mer resort. 

Speed and Franklin and myself were fascinated by the 
spectacle. There was a general store near at hand and 
Franklin went to buy some chocolate. Speed sat upright 
at his wheel and curled his mustachios. I leaned back 
and endeavored to pick out the most beautiful of the 
younger ones. It was a difficult task. There were many 
beauties. 

By this spectacle we were led to discuss for a few mo- 
ments whether sex — the tendency to greater freedom of 
relationship between men and women — was taking 
America or the world in an unsatisfactory direction. 
There had been so much talk on the subject of late in the 
newspapers and elsewhere that I could not resist sounding 
Franklin as to his views. "Are we getting better or 
worse?" I inquired. 

"Oh, better," he replied with the air of one who has 
given the matter a great deal of thought. "I cannot feel 
that there is any value in repression, or certainly very 
little. Life as it appeals to me is a flowering out, not a 
recession. If it Is flowering it is becoming richer, fuller, 
freer. I can see no harm in those girls showing their legs 
or in peoples' bodies coming into greater and greater 



THE PENNSYLVANIANS 55 

evidence. It seems to me it will make for a kind of nat- 
ural innocence after a while. The mystery will be taken 
out of sex and only the natural magnetism left. I never 
see boys bathing naked in the water but what I wish we 
could all go naked if the climate would only permit." 
And then he told me about a group of boys in Carmel 
whom he had once seen on a rainy day racing naked upon 
the backs of some horses about a field near their swim- 
ming hole, their white, rain-washed bodies under lower- 
ing clouds making them look like centaurs and fawns. 
Personally I follow life, or like to, with a hearty enthusi- 
asm wherever it leads. 

As we were talking, it began to rain, and we de- 
cided to drive on more speedily. A few miles back, after 
some cogitation at a crossroads, we had decided to take 
the road to Wilkes-Barre. I shall never feel grateful 
enough for our decision, though for a time it looked as 
though we had made a serious mistake. After a time 
the fine macadam road ended and we took to a poorer 
and finally a rutty dirt road. The grades became 
steeper and steeper — more difficult to ascend and de- 
scend. In a valley near a bounding stream — Stoddarts- 
ville the place was — we had another blowout — or some- 
thing which caused a flat tire, in the same right rear 
wheel; and this time in a driving rain. We had to get 
out and help spread tools in the wet road and hunt leaks 
In the rubber rim. When this was repaired and the 
chains put on the wheels we proceeded, up hill and down 
dale, past miles of apparently tenantless woods and rocky 
fields — on and on in search of Wilkes-Barre. We had 
concluded from our maps and some signs that it must 
be about thirtysix miles farther. As it turned out it was 
nearly seventy. The roads had a tendency to curve down- 
wards on each side into treacherous hollows, and as I 
had recently read of an automobile skidding on one of 
these, overturning and killing three people, I was not very 
giddy about the prospect. Even with the chains the 
machine was skidding and our able driver kept his eye 
fixed on the road. I never saw a man pay more minute 



56 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

attention to his wheel nor work harder to keep his ma- 
chine evenly balanced. A good chauffeur is a jewel, and 
Speed was one. 

But this ride had other phases than a mere bad road. 
The clouds were so lowery and the rain so heavy that for 
a part of the way we had to have the storm curtains on. 
We could see that it was a wonderful country that we 
were traversing, deliciously picturesque, but a sopping 
rain makes one's spirits droop. Franklin sat in his corner 
and I in mine with scarcely a word. Speed complained at 
times that we were not making more than four miles an 
hour. I began to calculate how long it would take to 
get to Indiana at that rate. Franklin began to wonder 
if we were not making a mistake trying to cut straight 
across the poorly equipped state of Pennsylvania. 

"Perhaps it would have been better after all if we had 
gone up the Hudson." 

I felt like a criminal trying to wreck a three thousand 
dollar car. 

But beyond a place called Bear Creek things seemed to 
get better. This was a town in a deep ravine with a rail- 
road and a thundering stream, plunging over a waterfall. 
The houses were charming. It seemed as if many well- 
to-do people must live here, for the summer anyhow. 
But when we asked for food no one seemed to have any. 
"Better go to Wilkes-Barre," advised the local inn 
keeper. "It's only fifteen miles." At four miles an hour 
we would be there in four hours. 

Out we started. The rain ceased for a time, though 
the clouds hung low, and we took up the storm curtains. 
It was now nearly two o'clock and by three it was plain 
we were nearing Wilkes-Barre. The roads were better; 
various railroads running in great cuts came into view. 
We met miners with bright tin buckets, their faces as black 
as coal, their caps ornamented with their small lamps. 
There were troops of foreign women and poorly clad 
children carrying buckets to or from the mines. Turning 
a corner of the road we came suddenly upon one of the 
most entrancing things in the way of a view that I have 



THE PENNSYLVANIANS 57 

ever seen. There are city scapes that seem some to 
mourn and some to sing. This was one that sang. It 
reminded me of the pen and ink woriv of Rops or Vierge 
or Whistler, the paintings of Turner and Moran. Low 
hanging clouds, yellowish or black, or silvery like a fish, 
mingled with a splendid filigree of smoke and chimneys 
and odd sky lines. Beds of goldenglow ornamented and 
relieved a group of tasteless low red houses or sheds in 
the immediate foreground, which obviously sheltered the 
heavy broods of foreign miners and their wives. The 
lines of red, white, blue and grey wash, the honking flocks 
of white geese, the flocks of pigeons overhead, the paint- 
less black fences protecting orderly truck gardens, as well 
as the numerous babies playing about, all attested this. 
As we stood there a group of heavy-hipped women and 
girls (the stocky peasant type of the Hungarian-Silesian 
plains) crossed the foreground with their buckets. Im- 
mense mounds of coal and slag with glimpses of distant 
breakers perfected the suggestion of an individual and 
characterful working world. Anyhow we paused and ap- 
plauded while Franklin got his sketching board and I 
sauntered to find more, if any, attractive angles. In the 
middle distance a tall white skyscraper stood up, a pre- 
lude, or a foretouch to a great yellowish black cloud 
behind it. A rich, smoky, sketchy atmosphere seemed to 
hang over everything. 

"Isn't Walkes-Barre wonderful?" I said to Franklin. 
"Aren't you glad now you've come?" 

"I am coming down here to paint soon," he said. "This 
is the most wonderful thing I have seen in a long while." 

And so we stood on this hillside overlooking Wilkes- 
Barre for a considerable period while Franklin sketched, 
and finally, when he had finished and I had wandered a 
mile down the road to see more, we entered. 



CHAPTER VIII 

BEAUTIFUL WILKES-BARRE 

My own interest in Wilkes-Barre and this entire region 
indeed dated from the great anthracite coal strike in 
1902, in my estimation one of the fiercest and best battles 
between labor and capital ever seen in America. Who 
does not know the history of it, and the troubles and ills 
that preceded it? I recall it so keenly — the complaints 
of the public against the rising price of coal, the rumors 
of how the Morgans and the Vanderbilts had secured 
control of all these coal lands (or the railroads that car- 
ried their coal for them), and having this latter weapon 
or club, proceeded to compel the independent coal oper- 
ators to do their will. How, for instance, they had de- 
tained the cars of the latter, taxed them exorbitant carry- 
ing charges, frequently declining to haul their coal at all 
on the ground that they had no cars; how they charged 
the independent mine operator three times as much for 
handling his hard coal (the product of the Eastern 
region) as they did the soft coal men of the west, and 
when he complained and fought them, took out the 
spur that led to his mine on the ground that it was 
unprofitable. 

Those were great days in the capitalistic struggle for 
control in America. The sword fish were among the 
blue fish slaying and the sharks were after the sword fish. 
Tremendous battles were on, with Morgan and Rocke- 
feller and Harriman and Gould after Morse and Heinze 
and Hill and the lesser fry. We all saw the end in the 
panic of 1907, when one multimillionaire, the scapegoat 
of others no less guilty, went to the penitentiary for fif- 
teen years, and another put a revolver to his bowels and 
died as do the Japanese. Posterity will long remember 

58 




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BEAUTIFUL WILKES-BARR^ 59 

this time. It cannot help it. A new land was in the throes 
of construction, a strange race of men with finance for 
their weapon were fighting as desperately as ever men 
fought with sword or cannon. Individual liberty among 
the masses was being proved the thin dream It has al- 
ways been. 

I have found in my book of quotations and labeled for 
my own comfort "The Great Coal Appeal," a statement 
written by John Mitchell, then president of the United 
Mine Workers of America, presenting the miners' side of 
the case in this great strike of 1902 which was fought out 
here in Wilkes-Barre, and Scranton and all the country 
we were now traversing. It was written at the time when 
the "Coal Barons," as they were called, were riding 
around in their private cars with curtains drawn to keep 
out the vulgar gaze and were being wined and dined by 
governors and presidents, while one hundred and fifty 
thousand men and boys, all admittedly underpaid, out 
on strike nearly one hundred and sixty days — a half a 
year — waited patiently the arbitration of their difficulties. 
The total duration of the strike was one hundred and 
sixtythree days. It was a bitter and finally victorious 
protest against an enlarged and burdensome ton, com- 
pany houses, company stores, powder at $2.75 a keg 
which anywhere else could be bought for ninety cents or 
$1.10. 

The quotation from Mitchell reads : 

In closing this statement I desire to say that we have entered 
and are conducting this struggle without malice and without bit- 
terness. We believe that our antagonists are acting upon misrep- 
resentation rather than in bad faith, we regard them not as ene- 
mies but as opponents, and we strike in patience until they shall 
accede to our demands or submit to impartial arbitration the dif- 
ference bervveen us. We are striking not to show our strength 
but the justice of our cause, and we desire only the privilege of 
presenting our case to a fair tribunal. We ask not for favors 
but for justice and we appeal our case to the solemn judgment of 
the American people. 

Here followed a detailed statement of some of the ills 



6o A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

they were compelled to hear and which I have in part 
enumerated above. And then: 

Involved in this fight are questions weightier than any question 
of dollars and cents. The present miner has had his day. He 
has been oppressed and ground down ; but there is another genera- 
tion coming up, a generation of little children prematurely doomed 
to the whirl of the mill and the noise and blackness of the breaker. 
It is for these children that we are fighting. We have not under- 
estimated the strength of our opponents; we have not overesti- 
mated our own power of resistance. Accustomed always to live 
upon a little, a little less is no unendurable hardship. It was with 
a quaking of hearts that we called for a strike. It was with a 
quaking of hearts that we asked for our last pay envelopes. But 
in the grimy, bruised hand of the miner was the little white hand 
of the child, a child like the children of the rich, and in the heart 
of the miner was the soul rooted determination to starve to the 
last crust of bread and fight out the long dreary battle to the end, 
in order to win a life for the child and secure for it a place in 
the world in keeping with advancing civilization. 

Messieurs, I know the strong must rule the weak, the 
big brain the little one, but why not some small approxi- 
mation towards equilibrium, just a slightly less heavily 
loaded table for Dives and a few more crumbs for Laz- 
arus? I beg you — a few more crumbs! You will appear 
so much more pleasing because of your generosity. 

Wilkes-Barre proved a city of charm — a city so in- 
stinct with a certain constructive verve that merely to 
enter it was to feel revivified. After our long, dreary 
drive in the rain the sun was now shining through sultry 
clouds and it was pleasant to see the welter of thriving 
foundries and shops, smoky and black, which seemed to 
sing of prosperity; the long, smooth red brick pavement 
of the street by which we entered, so very kempt and 
sanitary; the gay public square, one of the most pleasing 
small parks I have ever seen, crowded with long distance 
trolley cars and motors — the former bearing the naines 
of towns as much as a hundred and a hundred and fifty 
miles away. The stores were bright, the throngs inter- 
esting anci cheerful. We actually, spontaneously and 
unanimously exclaimed for joy. 



BEAUTIFUL WILKES-BARRE 6i 

Most people seem to have concluded that America is 
a most uninteresting land to travel in — not nearly so in- 
teresting as Europe, or Asia or Africa — and from the 
point of view of patina, ancient memories, and the pres- 
ence of great and desolate monuments, they are right. 
But there is another phase of life which is equally inter- 
esting to me and that is the youth of a great country. 
America, for all its hundreds and some odd years of life, 
is a mere child as yet, or an uncouth stripling at best — 
gaunt, illogical, elate. It has so much to do before it 
can call itself a well organized or historic land, and yet 
humanly and even architecturally contrasted with Europe, 
I am not so sure that it has far to go. Contrasted with 
our mechanical equipment Europe is a child. Show me a 
country abroad in which you can ride by trolley the dis- 
tance that New Yorlc is from Chicago, or a state as large 
as Ohio or Indiana — let alone both together — gridironed 
by comfortable lines, in such a way that you can travel 
anywhere at almost any time of the night or day. Where 
but in America can you at random step into a comfortable 
telephone booth and telephone to any city, even one so 
far as three thousand miles away; or board a train in 
almost any direction at any time, which will take you a 
thousand miles or more without change; or travel, as we 
did, two hundred miles through a fruitful, prosperous land 
with wonderful farms and farming machinery and a 
general air of sound prosperity — ev'cn lush richness? 
For this country in so far as we had traversed it seemed 
wonderfully prosperous to me, full of airy, comfortable 
homes, of spirited, genial and even witty people — a really 
happy people. I taice that to be worth something — and 
a sight to see. 

In Europe the country life did not always strike me 
as prosperous, or the people as intelligent, or really free 
in their souls. In England, for instance, the peasantry 
were heavy, sad, dull. 

But Wilkes-Barre gave evidences of a real charm. 
All the streets about this central heart were thriving 
marts of trade. The buildings were new, substantial 



62 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

and with a number of skyscrapers — these inevitable evi- 
dences of America's local mercantile ambitions, quite like 
the cathedrals religionists of the twelfth and thirteenth 
centuries loved to build. As the Florentines, Venetians 
and European high mightinesses of the middle ages gen- 
erally went in for castles, palaces, and "hotels de Ville," 
so Americans of money today "go in" for high buildings. 
We love them. We seem to think they are typical of 
our strength and power. As the Florentines, Venetians, 
Pisans and Genoese looked on their leaning towers and 
campaniles, so we on these. When America is old, and 
its present vigor and life hunger has gone and an 
alien or degenerate race tramp where once we lived and 
builded so vigorously, perhaps some visitors from a for- 
eign country will walk here among these ruins and sigh: 
"Ah, yes. The Americans were a great people. Their 
cities were so wonderful. These mouldy crumbling sky- 
scrapers, and fallen libraries and post offices and city 
halls and state capitals!" 

In Wilkes-Barre it was easy to find a very pretentious 
restaurant of the "grill" and "rathskeller" type, so fa- 
miliar and so dear, apparently, to the American heart — 
a partly underground affair, with the usual heavy Flemish 
paneling, a colored frieze of knights and goose girls 
and an immense yellow bill of fare. And here from our 
waiter, who turned out to be one of those dreadful crea- 
tures one sees tearing along country roads in khaki, army 
boots and goggles — a motor cyclist — we learned there 
were not good roads west of Wilkes-Barre. He had 
motorcycled to all places within a hundred or so miles 
east of here — Philadelphia, Dover, the Water Gap; 
but he knew of no good roads west. They were all dirt 
or rubble and full of ruts. 

Later advice from a man who owned a drug and sta- 
tionery store, where we laid in a stock of picture post- 
cards, was to the same effect. There were no large towns 
and no good roads west. He owned a Ford. We should 
take the road to Binghamton, via Scranton (our original 
"Scenic Route"), and from there on by various routes 



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to Buffalo. We would save time going the long way 
round. It seemed the only thing to do. Our motor- 
cycling waiter had said as much. 

By now it was nearly five o'clock. I was so enamored 
of this town with its brisk world of shoppers and mo- 
torists and its sprinkling of black faced miners that 
I would have been perfectly willing to make a night of 
It here — but the evening was turning out to be so fine 
that I could think of nothing better than motoring on 
and on. That feel of a cool breeze blowing against one, 
of seeing towns and hills and open fields and humble 
farm yards go scudding by! Of hearing the tr-r-r-r-r-r 
of this sound machine! The sun was coming out or 
at least great patches of blue were appearing in the heavy 
clouds and we had nineteen miles of splendid road, we 
understood, straight along the banks of the Susquehanna 
into Scranton and thence beyond, if we wished. As much 
as I had come to fancy Wilkes-Barre (I promised myself 
that I would certainly return some day), I was perfectly 
willing to go. 

Right here began the most delightful portion of this 
trip — indeed one of the most delightful rides I have 
ever had anywhere. Hitherto the Susquehanna had 
never been anything much more than a name to me. I 
now learned that it takes its rise from Otsego Lake in 
Otsego County, New York, flows west to Binghamton 
and Owego and thence southeast via Scranton, Wilkes- 
Barre and Harrisburg to the Chesapeake Bay at Havre 
de Grace. Going west over the Pennsylvania I had occa- 
sionally seen a small portion of it gemmed with rocky 
islands and tumbling along, thinly bright it seemed to 
me, over a wide area of stones and boulders. Here at 
Wilkes-Barre, bordered for a part of the way by a pub- 
lic park, alongside of which our road lay, it was quite 
sizable, smooth and greenish grey. Perhaps it was due 
to the recent heavy rains that it was so presentable. 

At any rate, sentineled by great hills, it seemed to come 
with gentle windings hither and yon, direct from the 
north. And the valley through which it moved— how 



64 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

beautiful it really was! Here and there, on every hand 
between Wilkes-Barre and Scranton were to be seen 
immense breakers with their attendant hills of coal or 
slag marking the mouths of mines. As we rode out to- 
night, finding it easy to make five to thirty miles an hour, 
even through the various mining towns we encountered 
on the way, we were constantly passing groups of niiners, 
some on foot, some in trolleys, some in that new inven- 
tion, the jitney bus, which seemed to be employed even 
on these stretches of road where one would have imag- 
ined the street car service was ample. How many long 
lines of miners' cottages and yellowish frame tene- 
ments we passed ! I wonder why it is that a certain form 
of such poverty and work seems to be inseparably identi- 
fied with yellow or drab paints? So many of these cheap 
wooden tenements were thus enameled, and then darkened 
pr smudged by grey soot. 

Many of the dwellers in these hives were to be seen 
camped upon their thresholds. We ran through one long 
dreary street — ^all these towns followed the shores of the 
river — and had the interest of seeing a runaway horse, 
drawing a small load of fence posts, dashing toward us 
and finally swerving and crashing into a tree. Again a 
group of boys, seeing the New York license tag on our 
car, hailed us with a disconcerting, "Eh, look at the 
New York bums!" Still farther on, finding some dif- 
ficulty with the lamps. Speed drew up by the roadside to 
attend to them while Franklin made a rough sketch of a 
heavenly scene that was just below us — great hills, a wide 
valley, some immense breakers in the foreground, a few 
clouds tinted pink by the last expiring rays of the day. 
This was such a sky and such a scene as might prelude 
a voice from heaven. 



CHAPTER IX 

IN AND OUT OF SCRANTON 

Darkness had fallen when we reached Scranton We 
approached from the south along a ridge road which 
skirted the city and could see it lying below to the east 
and ablaze with arc lights. There is something so ap- 
pealing about a city in a valley at dark. Although we 
had no reason for going in— our road lay really straight 
on-I wanted to go down, because of my old weakness, 
curiosity. Nothing is more interesting to me than the 
general spectacle of life itself in these thriving towns of 
our new land— though they are devoid of anything historic 
or in the mam artistic (no memories even of any great im- 
^Vi \^f,""°^ ^^'P speculating as to what their future 
will be. What writers, what statesmen, what arts, what 
wars may not take their rise in some such place as this? 
_ And there are the indefinable and yet sweet ways of 
just life We dwellers in big cities are inclined to over- 
look or forget entirely the half or quarter cities in which 
thousands upon thousands spend all their lives. For my 
part, I am never tired of looking at just mills and fac- 
tories and those long lines of simple streets where just 
common people, without a touch perhaps of anything that 
we think of as great or beautiful or dramatic, dwell I 
was not particularly pleased with Scranton after I saw 
It— a sprawling world of perhaps a hundred and fifty or 
two hundred thousand people without the verve or snap 
ot a half hundred places half its size,— but still here 
were all these people. It was a warm night and as we 
descended into commonplace streets we could look 
through the open windows of homes or "apartments" or 
Hats and see the usual humdrum type of furniture 
and hangings, the inevitable lace curtains, the centre 

65 



66 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

tables, the huge, junky lamps, the upright pianos or vic- 
trolas. Whenever I see long, artless streets like these 
in the hot, breathless summer time, I feel a wave of com- 
miseration sweep over me, and yet I am drawn to them 
by something which makes me want to live among these 
people. 

Oh, to escape endless cogitation ! To feel that a new 
centre table or a new lamp or a new pair of shoes in the 
autumn might add something to my happiness! To 
believe that mere eating and drinking, the cookmg of 
meals, the prospect of promotion in some small job might 
take away the misery of life, and so to escape chemistry 
and physics and the horror of ultimate brutal law! ^"In 
the streets of Ur," says an old Chaldean chronicle, "the 
women were weeping for that Bel was dead." Bel was 
their Christ and they were weeping as some people weep 
on Good Friday to this day. Such women one might find 
here in Scranton, no doubt; believers in old tales of old 
things. After five or six thousand years there is still 
weeping in simple streets over myths as vain ! 

Once down in the heart of Scranton, I did not care 
for it at all. It was so customary — an American city like 
Utica or Syracuse or Rochester or Buffalo — and Ameri- 
can cities of the hundred thousand class are so much 
alike. They all have the long principal street — possibly 
a mile long. They all have the one or two skyscrapers 
and the principal dry goods store and the hotel and the 
new post office building and the new Carnegie library and 
sometimes the new court house (if it's a county seat), or 
the new city hall. Sometimes these structures are very 
charming in themselves — tastefully done and all that — 
but most American cities of this class have no more 
imagination than an owl. They never think of doing an 
original thing. 

Do you think they would allow the natural configura- 
tion of their land or any river front, or lake, or water 
of any kind to do anything for them? Not at all. It's 
the rarest exception when, as at Wilkes-Barre for in- 



IN AND OUT OF SCRANTON 67 

stance, a city will take the slightest aesthetic advantage of 
any natural configuration of land or water. 

What! put a park or esplanade or a wall along a hand- 
some river bank in the heart of the town! Impossible. 
Put it far out in the residence section where it truly 
belongs and let the river go hang. Isn't the centre of 
a city for business? What right has a park there? 

Or perhaps it is a great lake front as at Buffalo or 
Cleveland, which could or should be made into some- 
thing splendid — the municipal centre, for instance, or 
the site of a great park. No. Instead the city will 
bend all its energies to growing away from it and leave 
it to shabby factories and warehouses and tumble-down 
houses, while it constructs immense parks in some region 
where a park could never possibly have as much charm 
as on the water front. 

Take the City of St. Louis as a case in point. Here 
is a metropolis which has a naturally fascinating water 
front along the Mississippi. Here Is a stream that is 
quite wonderful to look at — broad and deep. Years 
ago, when St. Louis was small and river traffic was im- 
portant, all the stores were facing this river. Later rail- 
roads came and the town built west. Today blocks and 
blocks of the most interesting property in the city is 
devoted to dead-alive stores, warehouses and tenements. 
It would be an easy matter and a profitable one for the 
city to condemn sufficient property to make a splendid 
drive along this river and give the city a real air. It 
would transform it instantly into a kind of wonder world 
which thousands would travel a long way to see. It 
would provide sites for splendid hotels and restaurants 
and give the city a suitable front door or facade. 

But do you think this would ever be seriously con- 
templated? It would cost money. One had better build 
a park away from the river where there are no old 
houses. The mere thought of trading the old houses for 
a wonderful scene which would add beauty and life to 
the city is too much of a stretch of the imagination for 
St. Louisians to accomplish. It can't be done. Ameri- 



68 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

can cities are not given to imagination outside the wallcs 
of trade. 

Scranton was no worse than many another American 
city of the same size and class that I have seen — or in- 
deed than many of the newer European cities. It was 
well paved, well lighted and dull. There were the usual 
traffic policemen (like New York, b'goshi), but with no 
traffic to guide, the one hotel designed to impress, the 
civic square surrounded by rows of thickly placed five- 
lamp standards. It was presentable, and, because Speed 
wanted to get oil and gasoline and we wanted to see what 
the town was like, we ran the machine Into a garage and 
wandered forth, looking into shoe and bookstore win- 
dows and studying the people. 

Here again I could see no evidence of that transfor- 
mation of the American by the foreigner into something 
different from what he has ever been — the peril which 
has been so much discussed by our college going sociolo- 
gists. On the contrary, America seemed to me to be 
making over the foreigner into its own image and like- 
ness. I learned here that there were thousands of Poles, 
Czechs, Croatlans, Sileslans, Hungarians, etc., working 
here in the coal mines and at Wilkes-Barre, but the young 
men on the streets and in the stores were Americans. 
Here were the American electric signs in great profusion, 
the American bookstores and newsstands crowded with 
all that mushy adventure fiction of which our lady critics 
are so fond. Five hundred magazines and weekly pub- 
lications blazed the faces of alleged pretty girls. "The 
automat," the ".dairy kitchen," the "Boston," "Milwau- 
kee" or "Chicago" lunch, and all the smart haberdash- 
eries so beloved of the ambitious American youth, were 
in full bloom. I saw at least a half dozen movlng- 
plcture theatres in as many blocks — and business and 
correspondence schools In ample array. 

What becomes of all the young Poles, Czechs, Croa- 
tlans, Serbians, etc., who are going to destroy us? I'll 
tell you. They gather on the street corners when their 
parents will permit them, arrayed in yellow or red ties, 



IN AND OUT OF SCRANTON 69 

yellow shoes, dinky fedoras or beribboned straw hats 
and style-plus clothes, and talk about "when I was out 
to Dreamland the other night," or make some such ob- 
servation as Say, you should have seen the beaut that 
cut across here just now. Oh, mamma, some baby I" 
Ihat s all the menace there is to the foreign invasion. 
Whatever their origmal intentions may be, they can't re- 
sist the American yellow shoe, the American moving pic- 
ture, Stem-Koop" clothes, "Dreamland," the popular 
song, the automobile, the jitney. They are completely un- 
done by our perfections. Instead of throwing bombs or 
owermg our social level, all bogies of the sociologist, 
they would rather stand on our street corners, go to the 
nearest movmg pictures, smoke cigarettes, wear high 
white collars and braided yellow vests and yearn over 
the girls who know exactly how to handle them, or work 
to some day own an automobile and break the speed 
laws. They are really not so bad as we seem to want 
them^ to be. They are simple, gauche, de jeune, "the 
iimit. In other words, they are fast becoming Ameri- 
cans. 



I think it was during this evening at Scranton that 
It hrst dawned on me what an agency for the transmis- 
sion of information and a certain kind of railway station 
gossip the modern garage has become. In the old days 
when railroads were new or the post road was still in 
force, the depot or the inn was always the centre for a 
kind of gay travelers' atmosphere or way station ex- 
change for gossip, where strangers alighted, refreshed 
themselves and did a little talking to pass the time To- 
day the garage has become a third and even more notable 
agency for this sort of exchange, automobile travelers 
being for the most part a genial company and constantly 
reaching out for information. Anyone who knows any- 
thing about the roads of his native town and country 
IS always in demand, for he can fall into long conversa- 
tion with chauffeurs or tourists in general, who will 
occasionally close the conversation with an offer of a 



70 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

drink or a cigar, or, if he is going in their direction, take 
him for a part of the way at least as a guide. 

Having found Scranton so dull that we could not make 
up our minds to remain overnight, we returned to the 
garage we were patronizing and found it crowded to 
the doors with cars of all descriptions and constantly 
being invaded by some others in search of something. 
Here were a group of those typical American hangers- 
on or loafers or city gossips or chair warmers— one 
scarcely knows what to call them— who, like the Roman 
frequenters of the Forum or the Greek "sitters at the 
place of customs," gather to pass the time by watchmg 
the activity and the enthusiasm of others. Personally my 
heart rather yearns over that peculiar temperament, com- 
mon enough to all the abodes of men, which for lack of 
spirit or strength or opportunity in itself to get up and do, 
is still so moved by the spectacle of life that it longs to be 
where others are doing. Here they were, seven or eight 
of them, leaning against handsome machmes, talkmg, 
gesticulating and proffering information to all and sun- 
dry who would have it. Owing to the assertion of the 
proprietor's helper (who was eager, naturally enough, 
to have the car housed here for the night, as he would 
get a dollar for it) that the roads were bad between 
here and Binghamton, a distance of sixtynine miles, we 
were a little uncertain whether to go on or no. But this 
charge of a dollar was an irritation, for in most garages, 
as Speed informed us, the night charge was only fifty 
cents. Besides, the same youth was foolish enough to 
confess, after Speed questioned him, that the regular 
charge to local patrons was only fifty cents. 

Something in the youth's description of the difficulties 
of the road between here and Binghamton caused me 
to feel that he was certainly laying it on a little thick. 
According to him, there had been terrible rains in the 
last few weeks. The road in spots was all but impas- 
sable. There were great hills, impossible ravines, and 
deadly railroad crossings. I am not so much of an 
enthusiast for night riding as to want to go in the face 














FRANKLIN STUDIES AN OBLITERATED SIGN 



IN AND OUT OF SCR ANTON 71 

of difficulties — indeed I would much rather ride by day, 
when the beauties of the landscape can be seen, — still 
this attempt to frighten us irritated me. 

And then the hangers-on joined in. Obviously they 
were friends of the owner and, like a Greek chorus, were 
brought on at critical moments to emphasize the tragedy 
or the terror or the joy, as the case might be. Instantly 
we were assailed with new exaggerations — there were 
dreadful, unguarded railway crossings, a number of rob- 
beries had been committed recentFy, one bridge some- 
where was weak. 

This finished me. 

"They are just talking to get that dollar," I whis- 
pered to Franklin. 

"Sure," he replied; "it's as plain as anything. I think 
we might as well go on." 

"By all means," I urged. "We've climbed higher 
hills and traversed worse or as bad roads today as we 
will anywhere else. I don't like Scranton very well 
anyhow." 

My opposition was complete. Speed looked a little 
tired and I think would have preferred to stay. But 
my feeling was that at least we could run on to some 
small inn or country town hotel where the air would be 
fresher and the noises less offensive. After a long year 
spent in the heart of New York, I was sick of the city — 
any city. 

So we climbed in and were off again. 

It was not so long after dark. The road lay north, 
through summery crowded streets for a time and then 
out under the stars. A cool wind was blowing. One 
old working man whom we had met and of whom we 
had asked the way had given us something to jest over. 

"Which way to Dalton?" we called. This was the 
next town on our road. 

"Over the viderdock," he replied, with a wave of his 
arm, and thereafter all viaducts became "viderdocks" 
for us. We sank into the deep leather cushions and, 
encountering no bad roads, went comfortably on. The 



72 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

trees in places hung low and seemed to make arched 
green arbors through which we were speeding, so pow- 
erful were our lamps. At one place we came upon a 
brilliantly lighted amusement resort and there we could 
not resist stopping. There was music and dancing and 
all the young clerks and beaus for miles around were 
here with their girls. I was so entranced that I wanted 
to stay on, hoping that some young girl might talk 
to me, but not one gave me even so much as a smile. 
Then we came to a country inn — an enticing looking 
thing among great trees — but we were awake now, en- 
joying the ride, and Speed was smoking a cigarette — why 
quit now? So on and on, up hills and down dale, and 
now and then we seemed to be skirting the Susquehanna. 
At other times we seemed to be off in side hills where 
there were no towns of any size. A railroad train came 
into view and disappeared; a trolley track joined us 
and disappeared; a toll road made us pay fifteen cents — 
and disappeared. At last as it neared unto midnight I 
began to get sleepy and then I argued that, whatever 
town came next, we should pause there for the night. 

"All right," said Franklin genially, and then more 
aisles and more streams and more stores — and then in 
the distance some manufactories came into view, brightly 
lighted windows reflected in some water. 

"Here we are," I sighed sleepily, but we weren't, not 
quite. This was a crossroad somewhere — a dividing 
of the ways — but the readable signs to say which way 
were not visible. We got out and struck matches to 
make the words more intelligible. They had been oblit- 
erated by rust. I saw a light in a house and went there. 
A tall, spare man of fifty came out on the porch and 
directed us. This was Factoryville or near it, he said — 
another mile on we would find an inn. We were some- 
thing like twentyfive miles from Scranton. If you 
stop and look at electric parks and watch the dancers, 
you can't expect to make very good time. In Factory- 
ville, as dark and silent as a small sleeping town may be, 



IN AND OUT OF SCRANTON 73 

we found one light — or Franklin did — and behind it the 
village barber reading a novel. In the shadow of his 
doorway Franklin entered into a long and intimate dis- 
cussion witli him — about heaven only knows what. I 
had already noted of Franklin that he could take up more 
time securing seeming information than any human be- 
ing I had ever known. It was astounding how he could 
stand and gossip, coming back finally with such a simple 
statement as, "He says turn to the right," or "We go 
north." But why a week to discover this, I used to 
think. Finally, almost arm in arm with the barber, they 
disappeared around a corner. A weary string of mo- 
ments rolled past before Franklin strolled back to say 
there was no real inn — no hotel that had a license — but 
there was a man who kept a "kind of a hotel" and he 
had a barn or shed, which would do as a garage. 

"Better stay, eh?" he suggested. 

"Well, rather," I answered. 

When we had unslung our bags and coats, Speed took 
the car to the barn in the rear and up we went into a 
typical American papier mache room. The least step, 
the least movement, and wooden floors and partitions 
seemed to shout. But there were two large rooms with 
three beds and, what was more, a porch with a wooden 
swing. There was a large porcelain bath in a room at 
the rear and pictures of all the proprietor's relatives 
done in crayon. 

How we slept 1 There were plenty of windows, with 
a fresh breeze blowing and no noises, except some katy- 
dids sawing lustily. I caught the perfume of country 
woods and fields and, afar off, as I stretched on an easy 

bed, I could hear a train whistling and rumbling faintly 

that far off Ooh I — ooh ! — 00 ! — ^00 ! 

I lay there thinking what a fine thing it was to motor 
In this haphazard fashion — how pleasant it was not to 
know where you were going or where you would be 
tomorrow, exactly. Franklin's car was so good. Speed 
so careful. Then I seemed to be borne somewhere on 



74 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

great wings, until the dawn coming in at the window 
awakened me. The birds were singing 

"Oh, yes, Factoryville," I sighed. "That s where we 
are. We're motoring to Indiana." 

And I turned over and slept another hour. 



CHAPTER X 

A LITTLE AMERICAN TOWN 

Factoryville, as we found this morning, was one 
of these very small places which, to one weary of metro- 
politan life, occasionally prove entertaining through an 
extreme simplicity and a sense of rest and peace. It 
was, as I saw sitting in my dressing gown in our conven- 
ient wooden swing, a mere collection of white cottages 
with large lawns or country yard spaces and flowers in 
profusion and a few stores. Dr. A. B. Fitch, Druggist 
(I could see this sign on the window before which he 
stood), was over the way sweeping off the sidewalk in 
front of his store. I knew it was Dr. A. B. Fitch by 
his solemn proprietary air, his alpaca coat, his serious 
growth of thick grey whiskers. He was hatless and 
serene. I could almost hear him saying: "Now, Annie, 
you tell your mother that this medicine is to be taken 
one teaspoonful every three hours, do you hear?" 

Farther down the street H. B. Wendel, hardware 
dealer, was setting out a small red and green lawn- 
mower and some zinc cans capable of holding anything 
from rain water to garbage. This was his inducement 
to people to come and buy. Although it was still very 
early, citizens were making their way down the street, 
a working man or two, going to some distant factory 
not in Factoryville, a woman in a gingham poke bonnet 
standing at a corner of her small white home examin- 
ing her flowers, a small barefooted boy kicking the damp 
dust of the road with his toes. It reminded me of the 
time when, as a youth in a similar town, I used to get up 
early and see my mother browsing over early, dew- 
laden blossoms. I was for staying in Factoryville for 
some time. 

75 



76 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

But Franklin, energetic soul, would have none of 
it. He had lived in a small town or on a farm for the 
greater part of his life and, unlike me, had never really 
deserted the country. Inside the room, on the balcony 
of which I was already swinging and idly musing, he 
was industriously shaving — a task I was reserving for 
some city barber. Presently he came out and sat down. 

"Isn't it wonderful — the country!" I said. "This 
town! See old Dr. Fitch over there, and that grocery 
man putting out his goods." 

"Yes!" replied Franklin. "Carmel is very much like 
this. There's no particular life there. A little small- 
town trading. Of course, Indianapolis has come so near 
now that they can all go down there by trolley, and 
that makes a difference." 

Forthwith he launched into amusing tales of Car- 
melite character — bits too idle or too profane to be 
narrated here. One only I remember — that of some 
yokels who were compelled to find a new hangout be- 
cause the old building they frequented was torn down. 
When Franklin encountered them in the new place he 
said quite innocently: "This place hasn't as much atmos- 
phere as the old one." "Oh, yes, it has," rejoined the 
rural. "When you open the back windows." 

Speed was shaving too by now, inside, and, hearing me 
sing the delights of rural life (windows and doors were 
open), he put in: 

"Yes, that's all well enough, but after you'd lived 
here awhile you mightn't like it so much. Gee! people 
in the country aren't any different from people anywhere 
else." 

Speed had a peculiarly pained and even frightened 
look on his face at times, like a cloud passing over a 
landscape or something that made me want to put my 
hand on his shoulder and say, "There, there." I won- 
dered sometimes whether he had often been hungry or 
thrown out of a job or put upon in some unkind way. 
He could seem momentarily so pathetic. 

"I know, I know," I said gaily, "but there are the 



A LITTLE AMERICAN TOWN 77 

cows and the trees and the little flower gardens and the 
farmers mowing hay and " 

"Huh!" was all he deigned to reply, as he shaved. 
Franklin, in his large tolerance of vagaries and mush, 
did not condescend to comment. I did not even win 
a smile. He was looking at the drugstore and the hard- 
ware store and an old man in a shapeless, baggy suit 
hobbling along on a cane. 

"I like the country myself," he said finally, "except 
I wouldn't want to have to farm for a living." 

I could not help thinking of all the days we (I am 
referring to a part of our family) had lived in these 
small towns and how as a boy I used to wish and wish 
for so many things. The long trains going through ! 
The people who went to Chicago, or Evansville, or Terre 
Haute, or Indianapolis! A place like Brazil, Indiana, 
a mere shabby coal town of three or four thousand popu- 
lation, seemed something wonderful. All the world was 
outside and I, sitting on our porch — front or back — 
or on the grass or under a tree, all alone, used to wonder 
and wonder. When would I go out into the world? 
Where would I go? What would I do? What see? 
And then sometimes the thought of my father and 
mother not being near any more — my mother being dead, 
perhaps — and my sisters and brothers scattered far and 
wide, and — I confess a little sadly even now — a lump 
would swell in my throat and I would be ready to cry. 

A sentimentalist? 

Indeed! 

In a little while we were called to breakfast in a 
lovely, homely diningroom such as country hotels some- 
times boast — a diningroom of an indescribable artless- 
ness and crudity. It was so haphazard, so slung to- 
gether of old yellow factory made furniture, chromos, 
lithographs, flychasers, five jar castors, ironstone "china," 
and heaven only knows what else, that it was delightful. 
It was clean, yes; and sweet withal — very — just like so 
many of our honest, frank, kindly psalm singing Metho- 
dists and Baptists are. The father and mother were 



78 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

eating their breakfast here, at one table. The little fair 
haired hired girl — with no more qualification as a waitress 
than a Thibetan Llama — was waiting on table. The 
traveling men, one or two of them at every breakfast 
no doubt, were eating their fried ham and eggs or their 
fried steak, and their fried potatoes, and drinking un- 
believable coffee or tea. 

Dear, crude, asinine, illusioned Americans ! How I 
love them! And the great fields from the Atlantic to 
the Pacific holding them all, and their dreams! How 
they rise, how they hurry, how they run under the sun! 
Here they are building a viaduct, there a great road, 
yonder plowing fields or sowing grain, their faces lit 
with eternal, futile hope of happiness. You can see them 
religiously tending store, religiously running a small- 
town country hotel, religiously mowing the grass, reli- 
giously driving shrewd bargains or thinking that much 
praying will carry them to heaven — the dear things! — 
and then among them are the bad men, the loafers, the 
people who chew tobacco and swear and go to the cities 
Saturday nights and "cut up" and don't save their 
money! 

Dear, dear, darling Yankee land — "my country tis" — 
when I think of you and all your ills and all your dreams 
and all your courage and your faith — I could cry over 
you, wringing my hands. 

But you, you great men of brains — you plotters of 
treason, of taxes which are not honest, of burdens too 
heavy to be borne, beware ! These be simple souls, my 
countrymen singing simple songs in childish ignorance 
and peace, dreaming sweet dreams of life and love and 
hope. Don't awake them! Let them not once suspect, 
let them not faintly glimpse the great tricks and subter- 
fuges by which they are led and harlequined and 
cheated; let them not know that their faith is nothing, 
their hope nothing, their love nothing — or you may 
see the bonfires of wrath alight — in the "evening dews 
and damp," the camps of the hungry — the lifting aloft 
of the fatal stripes — red for blood and white for spirit 



A LITTLE AMERICAN TOWN 79 

and blue for dreams of man; the white drawn faces of 
earnest seeking souls carrying the symbols of their de- 
sire, the guns and mortars and shells of their dreams! 

Remember Valley Forge! Remember Germantown; 
remember the Wilderness; remember Lookout Moun- 
tain! These will not be disappointed. Their faith is 
too deep — their hope too high. They will burn and slay, 
but the fires of their dreams will bring other dreams to 
make this old illusion seem true. 

It can hardly be said that America has developed a 
culinary art, because so many phases of our cooking are 
not, as yet, common to all parts of the country. In the 
southeast south you have fried chicken and gravy, corn- 
pone, corn pudding, biscuit, and Virginia ham, southern 
style; in the southwest south you have broilers, chicken 
tamales, chile con carne, and all the nuances acquired 
from a proximity to Mexico. In New England one en- 
counters the baked bean, the cold biscuit, pie for break- 
fast, and codfish cakes. In the great hotels and best 
restaurants of the large cities, especially in the east, the 
French cuisine dominates. In the smaller cities of the 
east and west, where no French chef would deign to 
waste his days, German, Italian and Greek — to say noth- 
ing of Jewish — and purely American restaurants (the 
dairy kitchen, for example) now contest with each 
other for patronage. We have never developed a single, 
dominating system of our own. The American "grill" 
or its companion in dullness, the American "rathskeller," 
boast a mixture of everything and are not really any- 
thing. In all cities large and small may be found these 
horrible concoctions which in their superficial treatment 
are supposed to be Flemish or Elizabethan or old Ger- 
man combined with the worse imaginings of the socalled 
mission school of furniture. Here German pancakes, 
knackwurst and cheesecake come cheek by jowl with 
American biscuit, English muffins, French rolls, Hun- 
garian goulash, chicken a la Maryland, steaks, chops, 
and ham and eggs. It's serviceable, and yet it's offensive. 



8o A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

The atmosphere is deadly — the idea atrocious. By com- 
parison with a French inn or a German family restau- 
rant such as one finds in Frankfort or Berlin, or even 
an English chophouse, it is unbelievably bad. Yet it 
seems to suit the present day spirit of America. 

All restaurant forms are being tried out — French, 
Greek, Italian, Turkish, English, Spanish, German — to 
say nothing of teahouses of all lands. In the long run, 
possibly some one school will become dominant or a 
compromise among them all. By that time American 
cooking will have become a complex of all the others. 
I sincerely trust that in the internecine struggle fried 
chicken, gravy, fresh hot biscuit, blackberry pie and fried 
mush do not wholly disappear. I am fond of French 
cooking and have a profound respect for the German 
art — but there ! Supposing that never anywhere, any 
more, was there to be any fried mush or blackberry pie 1 1 1 



CHAPTER XI 

THE MAGIC OF THE ROAD AND SOME TALES 

Our particular breakfast consisted of a choice of sev- 
eral "flake" breakfast foods, a hard fried chop, an egg 
or two, fried, some German fried potatoes, and all done 
as an American small town hotelkeeper used to dealing 
with farmers and storekeepers and "hands" would imag- 
ine they ought to be done. Where did the average 
American first get the idea that meals of nearly all kinds 
need to be fried hard? Or that tea has to be made so 

■ strong that it looks black and tastes like weeds? Or 
that German fried potatoes ought to be soggy and that 
all people prefer German fried potatoes? If you should 
ask for French fried potatoes or potatoes au gratin or 
potatoes O'Brien in a small country town hotel you would 
be greeted with a look of uncertainty if not of resent- 
ment. French fried potatoes, pray — or meat medium 
or broiled? Impossible! And as for weak, clear, taste- 
ful tea — shades of Buffalo Bill and Davy Crockett 1 
"Whoever heard of weak, clear tea ? The man has gone 
mad. He is some 'city fellow,' bent on showing off. It 
IS up to us to teach him not to get smart. We must 
frown and delay and show that we do not approve of 

. him at all." 

I While we were eating, I was thinking where our car 
would take us this day, and the anticipation of new fields 
and strange scenes was enough to make a mere poor 
breakfast a very trivial matter indeed. Clouds and high 
hills, and spinning along the bank of some winding 
stream, were an ample exchange for any temporary in- 
convenience. After breakfast and while Franklin and 
I once more tightened up our belongings. Speed brought 
about the machine and in the presence of a few resi- 

8i 



82 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

dents — a young girl of fifteen for one, who looked at 
us with wide, wishful eyes — we strapped on the bags 
and took our seats. I could not help feeling as I looked 
at some of them who observed us that they were wish- 
ing they were in our places. The car was good to look 
at. It was quite obvious from the various bags and 
wraps that we were en route somewhere. Someone was 
always asking us where we were from and where we were 
going — questions which the magic name of New York, 
particularly this distance away, seemed to make all the 
more significant. The night before in the garage at 
Scranton a youth, hearing us say that we were from there, 
had observed with an air : "How is old New York any- 
way?" And then, with a flourish: "I'll have to be going 
over there pretty soon now. I haven't been over in some 

time." 

Leaving Factoryville, we ran through country so beau- 
tiful that before long I regretted sincerely that we had 
done any traveling after dark the night before. We 
were making our way up a wide valley as I could see, the 
same green Susquehanna Valley, between high hills and 
through a region given over entirely to dairy farming. 
The hills looked as though they were bedded knee deep 
in rich, succulent grass. Groups of black and white 
Holstein cattle were everywhere to be seen. Some of 
the hills were laid out in checkerboard fashion by fields 
of grain or hay or buckwheat or great thick groves of 
trees. Before many a farm dooryard was a platform 
on which stood a milk can, or two or three : now and 
then a neighborhood creamery would come into view, 
where the local milk was churned wholesale and butter 
prepared and shipped. The towns for the most part 
were rarely factory towns, looking more as if they har- 
bored summer boarders or were but now starting on a 
manufacturing career. Girls or women were reading or 
sewing on porches. The region of the mines was far 
behind. 

And what a day ! The everchanging panorama — how 
wonderful it was ! Tr-r-r-r-r-r and we were descending 



THE MAGIC OF THE ROAD 83 

a steep hill, at the bottom of which lay a railroad track 
(one of those against which we had been warned, no 
doubt), and in the distance more great hills, sentineling 
this wide valley; the road showing like a white thread, 
miles and miles away. 

Tr-r-r-r-r-r, and now we were passing a prosperous 
farmyard, aglow with strident flowers, one woman sew- 
ing at a window, others talking with a neighbor at the 
door. Tr-r-r-r-r-r, here we were swinging around a sharp 
curve, over an iron bridge, noisy and shaky and beneath 
which ran a turbulent stream, and in the immediate fore- 
ground was an old mill or a barnyard alive with cattle 
and poultry. I had just time to think, "What if we 
should crash through this bridge into the stream below," 
when T-r-r-r-r-r-r, and now came a small factory or foun- 
dry section with tall smokestacks, and beyond it a fair- 
sized town, clean, healthy, industrious. No tradition, 
you see, anywhere. No monuments or cathedrals or 
great hotels or any historic scene anywhere to look for- 
ward to: but Tr-r-r-r-r-r and here we are at the farther 
outskirts of this same small town with more green fields 
in the distance, the scuff and scar of manufacturing gone 
and only the blue sky and endless green fields and some 
birds flying and a farmer cutting his grain with a great 
reaper. Tr-r-r-r-r-r — how the miles do fly past, to be 
sure I 

And T-r-r-r-r-r-r (these motors are surely tireless 
things), here is a lake now, just showing through the 
tall, straight trunks of trees, a silvery flash with a grey 
icehouse in the distance ; and then, Tr-r-r-r-r-r, a thick 
green wall of woods, so rich and dark, from which pour 
the sweetest, richest, most invigorating odors and into 
the depth of which the glance sinks only to find cooler 
and darker shadows and even ultimate shadow or a green 
blackness; and then — Tr-r-r-r-r — a hne of small white 
cottages facing a stream and a boy scufiing his toes in 
the warm, golden dust — oh, happy boyland! — and then, 
Tr-r-r-r-r — but why go on? It was all beautiful. It was 
all so refreshing. It was all like a song — only — Tr-r-r-r-r 



84 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

— and here comes another great wide spreading view, 
which Franklin wishes to sketch. He has a large pad 
of some peculiarly white porous paper, on which he 
works and from which he tears the sketches when they 
are done and deposits them in a convenient portfolio. 
By now Speed has become resigned to not getting to 
Indiana as fast as he would like. 

"Shucks!" I heard him say once, as he was oiling up 
his engine, "if we didn't have to stop this way every few 
minutes, we'd soon get into Indiana. Give me half way 
decent roads and this little old motor will eat up the 
miles as good as anyone. . . ." But when you have two 
loons aboard who are forever calling "Whoa !" and jump- 
ing up or out or both and exclaiming, "Well now, what 
do you think of that? — isn't it beautiful?" — what are you 
going to do? No real chauffeur can get anywhere that 
way — you know that. 

Here we were now backing the machine in the shade 
of a barn while Franklin fixed himself on the edge of a 
grey, lichen covered wall and I strolled off down a steep 
hill to get a better view of a railroad which here ran 
through a granite gorge. Perhaps Franklin worked as 
many as thirty or forty minutes. Perhaps I investigated 
even longer. There was a field on this slope with a fine 
spring on it. I had to speculate on what a fine pool could 
be made here. In the distance some horizon clouds made 
a procession like ships. I had to look at those. The 
spear pines here at the edge of this field were very beauti- 
ful and reminded me of the cypresses of Italy. I had 
to speculate as to the difference. Then Tr-r-r-r-r-r, and 
we were on again at about thirtyfive miles an hour. 

While we were riding across this country in the bright 
morning sunshine, Speed fell into a reminiscent or tale- 
telling mood. Countrymen born have this trait at times 
and Speed was country bred. He began, as I had al- 
ready found was his way, without any particular 
announcement, or a "DIdjah ever hear of the old fel- 
low," etc., and then he would be off on a series of yarns 
the exact flavor and charm of which I cannot hope to 



THE MAGIC OF THE ROAD 85 

transcribe, but some of which I nevertheless feel I must 
paraphrase as best I may. 

Thus one of his stories concerned a wedding some- 
where in the country. AH the neighbors had been 
invited and the preacher and the justice of the peace. 
The women were all in the house picking wool for a 
pastime. The men were all out at the edge of the woods 
around a log heap they had built, telling stories. The 
bride-to-be was all washed and starched and her hair 
done up for once, and she was picking wool, too. When 
the fatal moment came the preacher and the prospective 
husband came in, followed by all the men, and the two 
stood in the proper position for a wedding before the 
fireplace; but the girl never moved. She just called, 
"Go on; it'll be all right." So the preacher read or 
spoke the ceremony, and when it came to the place where 
he asked her, "Do you take this man to be your lawful 
wedded husband, etc.," she stopped, took a chew of 
tobacco out of her mouth, threw it in the fire, expecto- 
rated in the same direction, and said, "I reckon." Then 
she went on working again. 

Another of these yarns concerned the resurveying of 
the county line between Brown and Monroe counties in 
Indiana which a little while before had been moved west 
about two hundred and fifty yards. That put the house 
of an old Brown County farmer about ten yards over 
the Monroe County line. A part of Monroe County in 
this region was swampy and famous for chills and fever — 
or infamous. When the old farmer came home that 
night his wife met him at the gate and said: "Now we 
J just got tuh move, paw; that's all there is to it. I'm 
not goin' to live over there in Monroe with all these 
here swamps. We'll all die with chills and yuh know it." 

Fishing was great sport in some county in Indiana — I 
forget which. They organized fishing parties, sometimes 
thirty or forty in a drove, and went fishing, camping out 
for two or three days at a time, only they weren't so 



86 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

strong for hooks and lines, except for the mere sport 
of it. To be sure of having enough fish to go 'round, 
they always took a few sticks of dynamite and toward 
evening or noon someone would light a fuse and attach 
it to a stick of dynamite and, just as it was getting near 
the danger line, throw it in the water. 

Well, once upon a time there was just such a fish- 
ing party and they had a stick of dynamite, or two or 
three. There was also an old fat hotel man who had 
come along and he had a very fine big dog with him — 
a retriever — that he thought a great deal of. Whenever 
anyone would shoot a duck or throw a stick into the 
water, the dog would go and get it. On this occasion 
toward evening someone threw a stick of dynamite in 
the water with the fuse lit. Only instead of falling in 
the water it fell on some brush floating there and the 
darn fool dog seeing it jumped in and began to swim 
out toward it. They all commenced to holler at the 
dog to come back, but in vain. He swam to the dyna- 
mite stick, got it in his mouth, and started for shore — 
the fuse burning all the while. Then they all ran for 
their lives — all but the old fat hotel man, who couldn't 
run very well, though he did his best, and it was his dog. 
He lit out, though, through the green briars and brush, 
hollering, "Go home, Tige I Go home, Tige!" at every 
jump. But old Tige was just a-bounding on along be- 
hind him and a-wagging his tail and a-shaking the water 
off him. What saved the old man was that at one place 
the dog stopped to shake the water off and that gave 
him a fair start, but he only missed him by about forty 
feet at that. The dog was just that near when, bang! 
and say, there wasn't a thing left but just about a half 
inch of his tail, which somebody found and which the 
old man used to wear as a watch-charm and for good 
luck. He always said it was mighty good luck for him 
that the dog didn't get any nearer. 

And once more upon a time there was a very stingy 
old man who owned a field opposite the railway station 



THE MAGIC OF THE ROAD 87 

of a small town. A shed was there which made a rather 
good billboard and itinerant showmen and medicine men 
occasionally posted bills on it — not without getting the 
permission of the owner, however, who invariably ex- 
tracted tickets or something — medicine even. 

One day, however, the station agent, who was idling in 
front of his office, saw a man pasting showbills. He 
fancied Zeke Peters' (the owner's) permission had not 
been obtained, but he wasn't sure. It must be remem- 
bered that he was in no way related to Peters. Walking 
over to the man, he inquired: 

"Does paw know you're putting up them bills here?" 

"Why, no, I didn't think there'd be any trouble. 
They're only small bills, as you see." 

The agent pulled a long face. 

"I know," he replied, "but I don't think paw'd like 
this." 

The showman handed him a ticket for the circus — 
one ticket. 

"Well, I don't know about this," said the station agent 
heavily. "If you didn't ask paw, I don't know whether 
you'd better do this or not." 

The billposter handed him another ticket. 

"Won't that fix it?" he asked. 

"Well," replied the agent, seemingly somewhat molli- 
fied, "paw's awful particular, but I guess I can fix it. 
I'll try anyhow" — and he walked solemnly back to the 
station. 

Old Peters didn't chance to see the bills until a day 
or two before the circus. He was very angry, but at 
this time there were no circus men around to complain 
to. When the show came to town he looked up the box- 
office and found he had been done. Then he hurried 
to the agent. 

"Where's them tickets?" he demanded. 

"What tickets?" replied the agent. 

"That you got from that billposter." 

"Well, I'm usin' 'em. He gave 'em to me." 



88 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

"What fer, I'd like to know? It's my billboard, ain't 
it?" 

"Well, it was my idea, wasn't it?" 

There Speed stopped. 

"Well, did he get the tickets?" I asked. 

"Course not. Nobody liked him, so he couldn't do 
nothing." 

I liked the ending philosophy of this the best of all. 

And once upon a time in some backwoods county in 
Indiana there was an election for president. There 
weren't but sixtynlne voters in the district and they kept 
straggling in from six A. M., when the polls opened, to 
six P. M., when they closed. Then they all hung around 
to see how the vote stood. And guess how it stood? 

"Well?" 

"It was this-a-way. W. J. Bryan, 15; Andrew Jack- 
son, 1 2 ; Jeff Davis, 9 ; Abraham Lincoln, 8 ; Thomas Jef- 
ferson, 8; Moses, 6; Abraham, 15; John the Baptist, 3; 
Daniel Boone, 2; William McKinley, i." 

"What about George Washington, Speed?" 

"Well, I guess they musta fergot him." 

And, once more now, not every family in Indiana or 
elsewhere is strong for education, and especially in the 
country. So once upon a time there was a family — 
father and mother, that is — that got into a row over this 
very thing. An old couple had married after each had 
been married before and each had had children. Only, 
now, each of 'em only had one son apiece left, that is, 
home with 'em. The old man believed in education and 
wanted his boy educated, whereas the woman didn't. 
"No, siree," she said, "I don't want any of my children 
to ever git any of that book learnin'. None o' the others 
had any and I 'low as Luke can git along just as well 
as they did." 

But the old man he didn't feel quite right about it and 
somehow his boy liked books. So, since he was really 
the stronger of the two, he sent the two boys off and 




< 



a 
-J 



a; 

o 



THE MAGIC OF THE ROAD 89 

made 'em go. The old woman grieved and grieved. She 
felt as though her boy was being spoiled, and she said so. 

"Shucks!" said the old man, "he'll git along all right. 
What's the matter with you, anyhow? If my boy don't 
go to school he'll feel bad, and if I send him to school 
and keep yours at home to work the neighbors will talk — 
now I just can't manage it, that's all." 

So the two boys kept on going for awhile longer. 
Only the old woman kept feelin' worse and worse about 
it. All at once one day she got to feelin' so terrible 
bad that she just gathered up her boy's clothes and took 
him over to his grandfather's to live, and gee! the old 
grandfather was sore about it. Say! 

"Send that boy to school!" he says. "Never! Why, 
he ain't the same boy any more at all already. I'll be 
hanged if he ain't even fergot how to cuss," and he 
wouldn't even let the boy's fosterfather come near him. 
Not a bit of it, no siree. 

And once upon a time, in the extreme southern part 
of Indiana where the ice doesn't get very thick — not 
over three inches — there was a backwoods preacher who 
made a trip to Evansville and saw an ice machine mak- 
ing ice a foot thick, and he came back and told his con- 
gregation about it. 

"Whaddy think of that!" one of the old members ex- 
claimed. "The Lord can't make it more'n three inches 
around here, and he says men in Evansville can make it 
a foot thick!" 

So they turned the old preacher out for lying, b'gosh ! 

Once upon a time there was an old Irishman got 
on the train at Carmel, Indiana, and walked in the car, 
but the seats were all taken. One was occupied by an 
Indiana farmer and his dog. The Irishman knew, if 
he tried to make the dog get down and give him the 
seat, he would have the farmer and the dog to fight. 

"That's a very fine darg ye have." 

"Yes, stranger; he's the finest dog in the county." 



90 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

"And he has the marks of a good coon darg." 

"That's right. He can come as near findin' coons 
where there ain't any as the next one." 

"What brade of darg is he?" 

"Well, he's a cross between an Irishman and a 
skunk." 

"Bejasus, then he must be related to the both of us!" 

Somewhere in the country in Indiana they once built 
a railroad where there never had been one and it 
created great excitement. One old farmer who had 
lived on his farm a great many years and had never 
even seen a train or a track and had raised a large 
family, mostly girls, was so interested that he put his 
whole family in the wagon and drove up close to the 
track so they could get a good view of the cars the first 
time they came through. But before the train came he 
got uneasy. He was afraid the old grey mare would 
get scared and run away. So he got out, unhitched the 
old horse and tied it to a tree, gave it some hay and 
got back into the wagon. Pretty soon he saw the train 
coming very fast, and as the old wagon was quite close 
to the track he thought the train might jump the track 
and kill them all, so he leaped out, got between the shafts 
and started to pull the wagon a little farther down the 
hill. Just then the train neared the station and he got 
so excited that he lost all control of himself and away 
he went down the hill, lickety spHt. He ran upon a 
stump, upset the wagon and threw the old woman and 
all the children out, and hurt them worse than ever 
the old mare would have. The old woman was furi- 
ous. She didn't have any bridle on him and while he was 
running she missed seeing the train. 

"Gol darn you," she hollered, "if I didn't have a 
sprained ankle now, I'd fix you — runnin' away like the 
crazy old fool that you are !" 

"That's all right, Maria," he called back meekly. "I 
was a leetle excited, I'll admit; but next week when 
the train goes through again you and the children kin 



THE MAGIC OF THE ROAD 91 

come down and I'll stay to home. I just can't stand these 
newfangled things, I reckon." 

And once upon a time (and this is the last one for the 
present) there was a real wildcat fight somewhere — a 
most wonderful wildcat fight. An old farmer was sit- 
ting on a fence hoeing corn — that's the way they hoe 
corn in some places — and all at once he saw two Thomas 
wildcats approaching each other from different direc- 
tions and swiftly. He was about to jump down and run 
when suddenly the cats came together. It was all so 
swift that he scarcely had time to move. They came 
along on their hind feet and when they got together 
each one began to claw and climb up the other. In fif- 
teen rninutes they were out of sight in the air, each 
one climbing rapidly up the other; but he could hear 
them squalling for two hours after they were out of 
sight, and froth and hair fell for two days I 



CHAPTER XII 

RAILROADS AND A NEW WONDER OF THE WORLD 

It wouldn't surprise me in the least if the automobile, 
as it is being perfected now, would make over the whole 
world's railway systems into something very different 
from what they are today. Already the railways are 
complaining that the automobile is seriously injuring 
business, and this is not difficult to understand. It ought 
to be so. At best the railways have become huge, clumsy, 
unwieldy affairs little suited to the temperamental needs 
and moods of the average human being. They are mass 
carriers, freight handlers, great hurry conveniences for 
overburdened commercial minds, but little more. After 
all, travel, however much it may be a matter of necessity, 
is in most instances, or should be, a matter of pleasure. 
If not, why go forth to roam the world so wide? Are 
not trees, flowers, attractive scenes, great mountains, in- 
teresting cities, and streets and terminals the objective? 
If not, why not? Should the discomforts become too 
great, as in the case of the majority of railroads, and 
any reasonable substitute offer itself, as the automobile, 
the old form of conveyance will assuredly have to give 
way. 

Think what you have to endure en the ordinary rail- 
road — and what other kind is there — smoke, dust, cin- 
ders, noise, the hurrying of masses of people, the ring- 
ing of bells, the tooting of whistles, the brashness and 
discourtesy of employes, cattle trains, coal trains, fruit 
trains, milk trains in endless procession — and then they 
tell you that these are necessary in order to give you the 
service you get. Actually our huge railways are becom- 
ing so freight logged and trainyard and train terminal 
infested, and four tracked and cinder blown, that they 
are a nuisance. 

92 



A NEW WONDER OF THE WORLD 93 

Contrast travel by railroad with the charm of such 
a trip as we were now making. Before the automobile, 
this trip, if it had been made at all, would have had to 
be made by train — in part at least. I would not have 
ridden a horse or in any carriage to Indiana — whatever 
I might have done after I reached there. Instead of 
green fields and pleasant ways, with the pleasure of stop- 
ping anywhere and proceeding at our leisure, substitute 
the necessity of riding over a fixed route, which once or 
twice seen, or ten times, as in my case, had already be- 
come an old story. For this is one of the drawbacks to 

modern railroading, in addition to all its other defects 

it IS so fixed; it has no latitude, no elasticity. Who wants 
to see the same old scenes over and over and over? 
One can go up the Hudson or over the Alleghanies or 
through the Grand Canyon of the Arizona once or twice, 
but if you have to go that way always, if you go at 

^1^ . But the prospect of new and varied roads, and 

of that intimate contact with woodland silences, grassy 
slopes, sudden and sheer vistas at sharp turns, streams 
not followed by endless lines of cars — of being able to 
change your mind and go by this route or that according 
to your mood— what a difference! These constitute 
a measureless superiority. And the cost per mile is not 
so vastly much more by automobile. Today it is actually 
making travel cheaper and quicker. Whether for a long 
tour or a short one, it appears to make man independent 
and give him a choice of life, which he must naturally 
prefer. Only the dull can love sameness. 

North of Factoryville a little way — perhaps a score 
of miles — we encountered one of these amazing works 
of man which, if they become numerous enough, eventu- 
ally make a country a great memory. They are the bones 
or articulatory ligaments of the body politic which, like 
the roads and viaducts and baths of ancient Rome, testify 
to the prime of its physical strength and after its death 
lie like whitening bones about the fields of the world 
which once it occupied. 

We were coming around a curve near Nicholsen, Penn- 



94 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

sylvania, approaching a stream which traversed this great 
valley, when across it from ridge's edge to ridge's edge 
suddenly appeared a great white stone or concrete via- 
duct or bridge — we could not tell at once which — a thing 
so colossal and impressive that we instantly had Speed 
stop the car so that we might remain and gaze at it. 
Ten huge arches — each say two hundred feet wide and 
two hundred feet high — were topped by eleven other 
arches say fifteen feet wide and forty feet high, and this 
whole surmounted by a great roadbed carrying several 
railway tracks, we assumed. The builders were still at 
work on it. As before the great Cathedral at Rouen or 
Amiens or Canterbury, or those giant baths in Rome 
which so gratify the imagination, so here, at Nicholsen, 
in a valley celebrated for nothing in particular and at 
the edge of a town of no size, we stood before this vast 
structure, gazing in a kind of awe. These arches! How 
reaiiy beautiful they were, how wide, how high, how 
noHle, how symmetrically planned! And the smaller 
arches above, for all the actually huge size, how delicate 
and lightsomely graceful ! How could they carry a heavy 
train so high in the air? But there they were, nearly 
two hundred and forty feet above us from the stream's 
surface, as we discovered afterwards, and the whole 
structure nearly twentyfour hundred feet long. We 
learned that it was the work of a great railroad corpora- 
tion — a part of a scheme for straightening and shorten- 
ing its line about three miles! — which incidentally was 
leaving a monument to the American of this day which 
would be stared at in centuries to come as evidencing the 
courage, the resourcefulness, the taste, the wealth, the 
commerce and the force of the time in which we are 
living — now. 

It is rather odd to stand in the presence of so great 
a thing in the making and realize that you are looking 
at one of the true wonders of the world. As I did so I 
could not help thinking of all the great wonders 
America has already produced — capitals, halls, universi- 
ties, bridges, monuments, water flumes, sea walls, dams, 



1 ■ ^/' 




THK GREAT BRIDGE AT NICHOLSEN 



A NEW WONDER OF THE WORLD 95 

towering structures — yet the thought came to me how 
little of all that will yet be accomplished have we seen. 
What towers, what bridges, what palaces, what roads 
will not yet come! Numerous as these great things 
already are — a statue of Lincoln in Chicago, a building 
by Woolworth in New York, a sea wall at Galveston, an 
Ashokan dam in the Catskills, this bridge at Nicholsen 
— yet in times to come there will be thousands of these 
wonders — possibly hundreds of thousands where now 
there are hundreds. A great free people is hard at work 
day after day building, building, building— and for 
what? Sometimes I think, like the forces and processes 
which produce embryonic life here or the coral islands 
in the Pacific, vast intelligences and personalities are at 
work, producing worlds and nations. As a child is 
builded in the womb, so is a star. We socalled indi- 
viduals are probably no more than mere cell forms con- 
structing something in whose subsequent movements, pas- 
sions, powers we shall have no share whatsoever. Does 
the momentary cell life in the womb show in the sub- 
sequent powers of the man? Will we show in the subse- 
quent life of the nation that we have helped build? 
When one thinks of how little of all that is or will be 
one has any part in — are we not such stuff as dreams are 
made of, and can we feel anything but a slave's resig- 
nation? 

While we were sightseeing, Speed was conducting a 
social conference of his own in the shade of some trees 
in one of the quiet streets of Nicholsen. I think I have 
never seen anyone with a greater innate attraction for 
boys. Speed was only twentyfive himself. Boys seemed 
to understand Speed and to be hail-fellow-well-met with 
him, wherever he was. In Dover, at the Water Gap, 
in Wilkes-Barre, Scranton — wherever we chanced to 
stop, there was a boy or boys. He or they drew near 
and a general conversation ensued. In so far as I could 
see, the mystery consisted of nothing more than a natural 
ability on Speed's part to take them at their own value 



96 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

and on their own terms. He was just like any other 
boy among them, questioning and answering quite as 
if he and they were all grownups and very serious. Here 
in Nicholsen, as we came back, no less than five young- 
sters were explaining to him all the facts and wonders 
of the great bridge. 

"Yes, and one man fell from the top of them there 
little arches way up there last winter down to the back 
of the big arch and he almost died." 

"Those little arches are forty feet above the big ones," 
another went on. 

"Yes, but he didn't die," put In another informatively. 
"He just, now, broke his back. But he almost died, 
though. He can't do any more work." 

"That's too bad," I said, "and how does he manage 
to hve now?" 

"Well, his wife supports him, I believe," put In one 
quietly. 

"He's goln' to get a pension, though," said another. 

"There's a law now or something," volunteered a 
fourth. "They have to give him money." 

"Oh, I see," I said. "That's fine. Can any of you tell 
me how wide those arches are — those big arches?" 

"One hundred and eighty feet wide and two hundred 
feet high," volunteered one boy. 

"And the little arches are sixteen feet and three Inches 
wide and forty feet high," put in another. 

"And how long Is It?" 

"Two thousand, three hundred and ninetyfive feet 
from ridge to ridge," came with schoolboy promtpness 
from three at once. 

I was flabbergasted. 

"How do you know all this?" I inquired. 

"We learned it at school," said two. "Our teacher 
knows." 

I was so entertained by the general spirit of this group 
that I wanted to stay awhile and listen to them. Ameri- 
can boys — I know nothing of foreign ones — are so frank, 
free and generally intelligent. There was not the slight- 



A NEW WONDER OF THE WORLD 97 

est air of sycophancy about this group. I hey were not 
seeking anything save temporary entertainment. Some 
of them wanted to ride a little way, — perhaps to the 
nearest store — but only a little way and then only when 
invited. They all looked so bright, and yet in this group 
you could easily detect the varying characteristics which, 
other things being equal, would make some successes 
materially and others failures, possibly. Here was the 
comparatively dull boy, the bashful boy, the shrewd boy, 
the easy going, pleasure loving boy. You could see it in 
their eyes. One of them, a tallish, leanish youth, had 
instantly on the appearance of Franklin and myself 
crowded the others back and stood closest, his shrewd, 
examining eyes taking in all our characteristics. By 
looking into his eyes I could see how shrewd, inde- 
pendent, and selfprotective he was. He was not in the 
least overawed like some of the others, but rather supe- 
rior, like one who would have driven a clever bargain 
with us, if he might have, and worsted us at it. 

Except for this bridge and these children, Nicholsen 
held nothing, at least nothing obvious. It was just a 
small town with retail stores, at one of which, a drug- 
gist's, we stopped for picture cards. One would have 
supposed, with so vast a thing as this bridge, there would 
have been excellent photographs of it; but no, there was 
none that was really good. The main street, some coun- 
try roads, a wheat field which some rural poet had 
snapped — that was all. This country druggist's store 
was very flyspecked. I wished for Nicholsen's sake, as 
well as for my own, that something worthy had been 
prepared, which the sightseeing public might take away 
as a memento. 



CHAPTER XIII 

A COUNTRY HOTEL 

Beyond Nicholsen, somewhere in this same wondrous 
valley and in a winelike atmosphere, came New Milford 
and with it our noonday meal. We were rolling along 
aimlessly, uncertain where next we would pause. The 
sight of an old fashioned white hotel at a street corner 
with several rurals standing about and a row of beau- 
tiful elms over the way gave us our cue. "This looks 
rather inviting," said Franklin; and then, to the figure 
of a heavy nondescript in brown jeans who was sitting 
on a chair outside in the shade: 

"Can't we get something to eat here?" 

"You can," replied the countryman succintly; "they'll 
be putting dinner on the table in a few minutes." 

We went into the bar, Franklin's invariable opening 
for these meals being a cocktail, when he could get one. 
It was a cleanly room, but with such a field hand 
atmosphere about those present that I was a little dis- 
appointed, and yet interested. I always feel about most 
American country saloons that they are patronized by 
ditchers and men who do the rough underpaid work of 
villages, while in England and France I had a very dif- 
ferent feeling. 

I was much interested here by the proprietor, or, as 
he turned out afterward, one of two brothers who ov/ned 
the hotel. He was an elderly man, stout and serious, 
who in another place perhaps and with a slightly dif- 
ferent start in life might, I am sure, have been banker, 
railroad offcer, or director. He was so circumspect, 
polite, regardful. He came to inquire in a serious way 
if we were going to take dinner? We were. 

"You can come right in whenever you are ready," 
he commented. 

98 



A COUNTRY HOTEL 99 

Something in his tone and presence touched me 
pleasantly. 

Beause of the great heat — it was blazing outside — I 
had left my coat in the car and was arrayed in a brown 
khaki shirt and grey woolen trousers, with a belt. Be- 
cause of the heat it did not occur to me that my appear- 
ance would not pass muster. But, no. Life's little rules 
of conduct are not so easily set aside, even in a country 
hotel. As I neared the dinlngroom door and was pass- 
ing the coatrack, mine host appeared and, with a grace 
and tact which I have nowhere seen surpassed, and in 
a voice which instantly obviated all possibility of a dis- 
agreeable retort, he presented me a coat which he had 
taken from a hook and, holding it ready, said: "Would 
you mind slipping into this?" 

"Pardon me," I said, "I have a coat in the car; I will 
get that." 

"Don't trouble," he said gently; "you can wear this if 
you like. It will do." 

I had to smile, but in an entirely friendly way. Some- 
, thing about the man's manner made me ashamed of my- 
self — not that it would have been such a dreadful thing 
to have gone into the diningroom looking as I was, 
'. for I was entirely presentable, but that I had not taken 
greater thought to respect his conventions more. He 
was a gentleman running a country hotel — a real gen- 
tleman. I was the brash, smart asininity from the city 
seeking to have my own way in the country because the 
city looks down on the country. It hurt me a little and 
yet I felt repaid by having encountered a man who could 
fence so skilfully with the little and yet irritable and 
no doubt difficult problems of his daily life. I wanted 
to make friends with him, for I could see so plainly that 
he was really above the thing he was doing and yet con- 
tent in some philosophical way to make the best of it. 
jHow this man came to be running a country hotel, with 
a bar attached, I should like to know. 

After luncheon, I fell into a conversation with him, 
brief but interesting. He had lived here many years. 



lOo A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

The place over the way with the beautiful trees belonged 
to a former congressman. (I could see the forgotten 
dignitary making the best of his former laurels in 
this out-of-the-way place.) New Milford, a very old 
place, had been hurt by the growth of other towns. 
But now the automobile was beginning to do something 
for it. Last Sunday six hundred machines had passed 
through here. Only last week the town had voted to 
pave the principal street, in order to attract further 
travel. One could see by mine host's manner that his 
hotel business was picking up. I venture to say he of- 
fered to contribute liberally to the expense, so far as his 
ability would permit. 

I could not help thinking of this man as we rode away, 
and I have been thinking of him from time to time ever 
since. He was so simple, so sincere, so honorably dull 
or conventional. I wish that I could believe there are 
thousands of such men in the world. His hotel was taste- 
less; so are the vast majority of other hotels, and homes 
too, in America. The dining room was execrable from 
one point of view; naive, and pleasingly so, from an- 
other. One could feel the desire to "set a good table" 
and give a decent meal. The general ingredients were 
good as far as they went, but, alas! the average Ameri- 
can does not make a good servant — for the public. The 
girl who waited on us was a poor slip, well intentioned 
enough, I am sure, but without the first idea of what to 
do. I could see her being selected by mine host because 
she was a good girl, or because her mother was poor 
and needed the money — never because she had been 
trained to do the things she was expected to do. Ameri- 
cans live in a world of sentiment in spite of all their 
business acumen, and somehow expect God to reward 
good intentions with perfect results. I adore the spirit, 
but I grieve for its inutility. No doubt this girl was 
dreaming (all the time she was waiting on us) of some 
four-corners merry-go-round where her beau would be 
waiting. Dear, naive America 1 When will it be differ- 



A COUNTRY HOTEL loi 

ent from a dreaming child, and, if ever that time arrives, 
shall we ever like it as much again? 

And then came Halstcad and Binghamton, for we 
i were getting on. I never saw a finer day nor ever 
i enjpyed one more. Imagine smooth roads, a blue sky, 
! white and black cattle on the hills, lovely farms, the rich 
green woods and yellow grainfields of a fecund August. 
Life was going by in a Monticelli-esque mood. Door- 
yards and houses seemed to be a compound of blowing 
curtams, cool deep shadows, women in summery dresses 
readmg, and then an arabesque of bright flowers, golden- 
glow, canna, flowering sage, sweet elyssum, geraniums 
and sunflowers. At Halstead we passed an hotel facing 
the Susquehanna River, which seemed to me the ideal of 
I what a summer hotel should be — gay with yellow and 
' white awnings and airy balconies and painted with flow- 
ers. Before it was this blue river, a lovely thing, with 
canoes and trees and a sense of summer life. 

Beyond, on a smooth white road, we met a man who 
was sellmg some kind of soap— a soap especially good 
I for motorists. He came to us out of Binghamton, driv- 
ing an old ramshackle vehicle, and hailed us as we were 
pausing to examine something. He was a tall, lean, 
shabby American, clothed in an ancient frock coat and 
soft rumpled felt hat, and looked like some small-town 
carpenter or bricklayer or maker of cement walks. By 
I his side sat a youngish man, who looked nothing and 
said nothing, taking no part in what followed. He had 
a dreamy, speculative and yet harassed look, made all 
; the more emphatic by a long pointed nose and narrow 
pointed chin. 

"Fve got something here I'd like to show you, gentle- 
imen," he called, drawing rein and looking hopefully 
!iat Franklin and Speed. 

I "Well, we're always willing to look at something 
jonce," replied Franklin cheerfully and in a bantering 
tone. 

"Very well, gentlemen," said the stranger, "you're just 



102 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

the people I'm looking for, and you'll be glad you've met 
me'' Even as he spoke he had been reaching under 
Ae seat and produced a small can of somethmg which 
he now held dramatically aloft. "It's the finest thing in 
the wly of a hand or machine soap that has ever been 
LveMed, no akali (he did not seem to know there were 
two Is in the word), good for man or woman. Wont 
soil the most delicate fabric or injure the d^'^Jiest hands 
I know, now, for I've been working on this for the last 
three years. It's my personal, private invention, ihe 
basis of it is commeal and heahng, soothing ods You 
rub it on your hands before you put them in water and 
it takes off all these spots and stains that come from 
machine oil and that ordinary turpentine won t take out. 
It softens them right up. Have you got any oil stains? 
he continued, seizing one of Speed's genml hands. Very 
good. This will take it right out. You haven t any 
water in there, have you, or a pan? Never mind. I ni 
Tre this lady up here in this house w U let me have 
some," and off he hustled with the air ot a proselytizing 

""' f waslnterested. So much enthusiasm for so humble 
a thing as a soap aroused me. Besides he was curious 
to look at-a long, lean, shambling zealot. He was so 
zealous, so earnest, so amusing, if you_ please or hope- 
less "Here really," I said, "is the basis of all zealotry, 
of all hopeless invention, of struggle and dreams never 
to be fulfilled." He looked exactly like the average in- 
ventor who is destined to invent and invent and invent 
and never succeed in anything. ^^ 

"Well, there is character there, anyhow, said trank- 
lin "That long nose, that thin dusty coat that watery 
blue, inventive eye— all mountebanks and charlatans and 
street corner fakers have something of this man in them 

— and yet " 

He came hustling back. . . , , ^ ,^„„ 

"Here you are now!" he exclaimed, as he put down 

a small washpan full of water. "Now you just take this 

and rub it in good. Don't be afraid; it wont hurt the 



A COUNTRY HOTEL 103 

finest fabric or skin. I know what all the ingredients 
are. I worked on it three years before I discovered it. 
Everybody in Binghamton knows me. If it don't work, 
just write me at any time and you can get your money 
back." 

In his eager routine presentation of his material he 
seemed to forget that we were present, here and now, 
and could demand our money back before he left. 
In a fitting spirit of camaraderie Speed rubbed the soap 
on his hands and spots which had for several days de- 
fied ordinary soap-cleansing processes immediately disap- 
peared. Similarly, Franklin, who had acquired a few stains, 
salved his hands. He washed them in the pan of water 
standmg on the engine box, and declared the soap a 
success. From my lofty perch in the car I now said 
to Mr. Vallaurs (the name on the label of the bottle), 
"Well, now you've made fifteen cents." 

"Not quite," he corrected, with the eye of a holy 
disputant. "There are eight ingredients in that besides 
the cornmeal and the bottle alone costs me four and 
one-half cents." 

"Is that so?" I continued — unable to take him seri- 
ously and yet sympathizing with him, he seemed so futile 
and so prodigal of his energy. "Then I really suppose 
you don't make much of anything?" 

"Oh, yes, I do," he rephed, seemingly unconscious of 
my jestmg mood, and trying to be exact in the inter- 
pretation of his profit. "I make a little, of course. I'm 
only introducing it now, and it takes about all I make 
to get It around. I've got it in all the stores of Bing- 
hamton. I've been in the chemical business for years 
now. I got up some perfumes here a few years ago, but 
some fellows in the wholesale business did me out of 
them." 

"I see," I said, trying to tease him and so bring forth 
any latent animosity which he might be concealing against 
fate or life. He looked to me to be a man who had 
been kicked about from pillar to post. "Well, when you 
get this well started and it looks as though it would be 



104 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

a real success, some big soap or chemical manufacturer 
will come along and take it away from you. You won't 
make anything out of it." 

"Won't I?" he rejoined defiantly, taking me with en- 
tire seriousness and developing a flash of opposition in 
his eyes. "No, he won't, either. I've had that done to 
me before, but it won't happen this time. I know the 
tricks of them sharps. I've got all this patented. The 
last time I only had my application in. That's why I'm 
out here on this road today interducin' this myself. I 
lost the other company I was interested in. But I'm 
going to take better care of this one. I want to see that 
it gets a good start." 

He seemed a little like an animated scarecrow in his 
mood. 

"Oh, I know," I continued dolefully, but purely in a 
jesting way, "but they'll get you, anyhow. They'll swal- 
low you whole. You're only a beginner; you're all right 
now, so long as your business is small, but just wait until 
it looks good enough to fight for and they'll come and 
take it away from you. They'll steal or imitate it, and 
if you say anything they'll look up your past and have 
you arrested for something you did twenty or thirty 
years ago in Oshkosh or Oskaloosa. Then they'll have 
your first wife show up and charge you with bigamy or 
they'll prove that you stole a horse or something. Sure 
— they'll get it away from you," I concluded. 

"No, they won't either," he insisted, a faint suspi- 
cion that I was joking with him beginning to dawn on 
him. "I ain't never had but one wife and I never stole 
any horses. I've got this patented now and I'll make 
some money out of it, I think. It's the best soap" — (and 
here as he thought of his invention once more his brow 
cleared and his enthusiasm rose) — "the most all-round 
useful article that has ever been put on the market. You 
gentlemen ought really to take a thirty-cent bottle" — 
he went back and produced a large one — "it will last you 
a lifetime. I guarantee it not to soil, mar or injure the 
finest fabric or skin. Cornmeal is the chief ingredient 



A COUNTRY HOTEL 105 

and eight other chemicals, no akali. I wish you'd take 
a few of my cards"— he produced a handful of these— 
and if you find anyone along the road who stands in 
need of a thing of this kind I wish you'd just be good 
enough to give 'em one so's they'll know where to write 
i m right here in Binghamton. I've been here now for 
twenty years or more. Every druggist knows me." 

He looked at us with an unconsciously speculative eye 
—as though he were wondering what service we would 
be to him. 

Franklin took the cards and gave him fifteen cents, 
bpeed was still washing his hands, some new recalcitrant 
spots having been discovered. I watched the man as he 
proceeded to his rattletrap vehicle. 

w'ii^^"' ^^^entlemen, I'll be saying good day to you. 
Will you be so kind as to return that pan to that lady 
up there, when you're through with it? She was very 
accommodating about it." 

to itSf ^^'"^>'' c^'-tainly." replied Franklin, "we'll attend 

Once he had gone there ensued a long discussion of 
inventors and their fates. Here was this one, fifty years 
of age, if he was a day, and out on the public road, ad- 
vertising a small soap which could not possibly bring him 
the reward he desired soon. 

"You see he's going the wrong way about it," Frank- 
lin said. He s putting the emphasis on what he can 
do personally, when he ought to be seeing about what 
others can do for him; he should be directing as a man- 
ager, instead of working as a salesman. And another 
thing, he places too much emphasis upon local standards 
ever to become broadly successful. He said over and 
over that all the druggists and automobile supply houses 
in Binghamton handle his soap. That's nothing to us 
We are as it were, overland citizens and the judgments 
of Binghamton do not convince us of anything any more 
than the judgments of other towns and crossroad com- 
munities along our route. Every little community has 
Its standards and its locally successful ones. The thing 



io6 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

that will determine actual success is a man's ability or 
inability to see outside and put upon himself the test 
of a standard peculiar to no one community but common 
to all. This man was not only apparently somewhat mys- 
tified when we asked him what scheme he had to reach 
the broader market with his soap; he appeared never 
to have approached in his own mind that possibility at 
all. So he could never become more than partially suc- 
cessful or rich." 

"Very true," I assented, "but a really capable man 
wouldn't work for him. He'd consider him too futile 
and try to take his treasure away from him and then the 
poor creature would be just where he was before, com- 
pelled to invent something else. Any man who would 
work for him wouldn't actually be worth haying. It 
would be a case of the blind leading the blind." 

There was much more of this — a long discussion. We 
agreed that any man who does anything must have so 
much more than the mere idea— must have vision, the 
ability to control and to organize men, a magnetism for 
those who are successful— in short, that mysterious some- 
thing which we call personality. This man did not have 
it. He was a poor scrub, blown hither and yon by all 
the winds of circumstance, dreaming of some far-off su- 
premacy which he never could enjoy or understand, once 
he had it. 



CHAPTER XIV 

THE CITY OF SWAMP ROOT 

BiNGHAMTON— "Bimington," as Franklin confusedly 
called It in trying to ask the way of someone— now 
dawned swiftly upon us. I wouldn't devote a line to 
those amazingly commercial towns and cities of America 
which are so numerous if the very commercial life of 
the average American weren't so interesting to me. If 
anyone should ask me "What's in Binghamton?" I 
should confess to a sense of confusion, as if he were 
expecting me to refer to something artistic or connected 
m any way with the world of high thought. But then, 
what's in Leeds or Sheffield or Nottingham, or in Stettin 
or Hamburg or Bremen ? Nothing save people, and peo- 
ple are always interesting, when you get enough of them. 
When we arrived in Binghamton there was a pa- 
rade, and a gala holiday atmosphere seemed everywhere 
prevailing. Flags were out, banners were strung across 
the roadway; in every street were rumbling, large flag- 
bedecked autotrucks and vehicles of various descriptions 
loaded with girls and boys in white (principally girls) 
and frequently labeled "Boost Johnson City." 

"What in the world is Johnson City, do you suppose?" 
I asked of Franklin. "Are they going to change the 
name of Binghamton to Johnson City?" 

Speed was interested in the crowds. "Gee, this is a 
swell town for girls," he commented; but after we had 
alighted and walked about among them for a time, they 
did not seem so attractive to me. But the place had a 
real if somewhat staccato air of gayety. 

"Where is Johnson City?" I asked of a drug clerk 
of whom we were buying a sundae. 

107 



io8 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

"Oh, it's a town out here — a suburb that used to be 
called Leicestershire. They're renaming it after a man 
out there — R. G. Johnson." 

"Why?" 

"Oh, well, he's made a big success of a shoe business 
out there that employs two thousand people and he's 
given money for different things." 

"So they're naming the town after him?" 

"Yes. He's a pretty good fellow, I guess. They 
say he is." 

Not knowing anything of Mr. Johnson, good, bad, 
or indifferent, I agreed with myself to suspend judgment. 
A man who can build up a shoe manufacturing busi- 
ness that will employ two thousand people and get the 
residents of a fair-sized city or town tc rename it after 
him is doing pretty well, I think. He couldn't be a Dick 
Turpin or a Jesse James; not openly, at least. People 
don't rename towns after Dick Turpins. 

But Binghamton soon interested me from another 
point of view, for stepping out of this store I saw a great 
red, eight or nine story structure labeled the Kilmer 
Building, and then I realized I was looking at the home 
of "Swamp Root," one of those amazing cure-all reme- 
dies which arise, shine, make a fortune for some clever 
compounder and advertiser, and then after a period dis- 
appear. Think of Hood's Sarsaparilla, Ayer's Sarsa- 
parllla, Peruna, Omega Oil, Lydia E. Pinkham's 
Vegetable Compound ! American inventions, each and 
all, purchased by millions. Why don't the historians tell 
us of the cure-alls of Greece and Rome and Egypt ?nd 
Babylon? There must have been some. 

Looking at Dr. Kilmer's Swamp Root Building re- 
minded me of a winter spent in a mountain town in West 
Virginia. It had a large and prosperous drug store, 
where one night I happened to be loafing for a little 
while, to take shelter from the snow that was falling 
heavily. Presently there entered an old, decrepit negro 
woman who hobbled up to the counter, and fumbling 



THE CITY OF SWAMP ROOT 109 

under her black shawl, produced a crumpled dollar bill. 

"I want a botde of Swamp Root," she said. 

"I'll tell you how it is, mammy," said the clerk, a dap- 
per country beau, with a most oily and ingratiating man- 
ner. "If you want to take six bottles it's only five dol- 
lars. Six botdes make a complete cure. If you take the 
whole six now, you've got 'em. Then you've got the 
complete cure." 

The old woman hesitated. She was evidently as near 
the grave with any remedy as without one. 

"All right," she said, after a moment's pause. 

So the clerk wrapped six bottles into a large, heavy 
parcel, took the extra bills which she produced and rang 
them up in his cash register. And meanwhile she gath- 
ered her cure under her shawl, and hobbled forth, smil- 
ing serenely. It depressed me at the time, but it was none 
of my business. 

Now as I looked at this large building, I wondered 
how many other hobbling mammies had contributed to 
its bricks and plate glass — and why. 

There was another large building, occupied by a con- 
cern called the Ansco Company, which seemed to arouse 
the liveliest interest in Franklin. He had at some pre- 
vious dme been greatly interested in cameras and hap- 
pened to know that a very large camera company, 
situated somewhere in America, had once stolen from this 
selfsame Ansco Company some secret process relating 
to the manufacture of a flexible film and had proceeded 
therewith to make so many millions that the user of the 
stolen process eventually became one of the richest men 
in America, one of our captains of great industries. 

But the owners of the Ansco Company were dissatis- 
fied. Like the citizens in the ancient tale who are robbed 
and cry "Stop thief!" they sued and sued and sued in the 
courts. First they sued in a circuit court, then in a state 
court of appeals, then in a federal court and then before 
the United States Supreme Court. There were count- 
less lawyers and bags and bags of evidence; reversals, 
new trials, stays, and errors in judgment, until finally, by 



no A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

some curious turn of events, the United States Supreme 
Court decided that the process invented by the Ansco 
Company really did belong to said Ansco Company and 
that all other users of the process were interlopers and 
would have to repay to said Ansco Company all they 
had ever stolen and more — a royalty on every single 
camera they had ever sold. So the Ansco Company, 
like the virtuous but persecuted youth or girl in the fairy 
tale, was able to collect the millions of which it had been 
defrauded and live happily ever afterwards. 

Leaving Binghamton, we went out along the beauti- 
ful Susquehanna, which here in the heart of the city had 
been parked for a little way, and saw all the fine houses 
of all the very wealthy people of Binghamton. Then 
we drove along a street crowded with more and more 
beautiful homes, all fresh and airy with flowers and 
lawns and awnings, and at last we came to Johnson City, 
or Leicestershire as it once was. Here were the remains 
of a most tremendous American celebration — flags and 
buntings and signs and a merry-go-round. In front of a 
new and very handsome Catholic Church which was just 
building hung a large banner reading "The noblest Ro- 
man of them all — R. G. Johnson" — a flare of enthusi- 
asm which I take it must have had some very solid sub- 
stance behind it. Down in a hollow, was a very, very, 
very large red factory with its countless windows and 
great towering stacks and a holiday atmosphere about 
it, and all around it were houses and houses and houses, 
all new and all very much alike. You could see that 
Mr. Johnson and his factory and his proteges had grown 
exceedingly fast. And in the streets still were wagons 
with bunting on them and people in them, and we could 
see that there had just been a procession, with soldiers 
and boy scouts and girls — but alas, we had missed it. 

"Well," I said to Franklin, "now you see how it is. 
Here is the reward of virtue. A man builds a great 
business and treats his employes fairly and everybody 
loves him. Isn't that so?" 



ir,,.\i^lji, 














KLORENCE AND THE ARNO, AT OVVEGO 



THE CITY OF SWAMP ROOT in 

Franklin merely looked at me. He has a way of just 
contemplating you, at times — noncommittally. 

It was soon after leaving Binghamton that we en- 
countered the first of a series of socalled "detours," oc- 
curring at intervals all through the states of New York, 
Ohio and Indiana, and which we later came to conclude 
ft-ere the invention of the devil himself. Apparently 
traffic on the roads of the states has increased so much 
of late that it has necessitated the repairing of former 
"made" roads and the conversion of old routes of clay 
into macadam or vitrified brick. Here in western New 
York (for we left Pennsylvania at Halstead for awhile) 
they were all macadam, and in many places the state 
roads socalled (roads paid for by the money of the 
state and not of the county) were invariably supposed to 
be the best. All strolling villagers and rurals would tell 
you so. As a matter of fact, as we soon found for our- 
selves, they were nearly always the worst, for they 
hummed with a dusty, whitey traffic, which soon suc- 
ceeded in wearing holes in them of a size anywhere from 
that of a dollar to that of a washtub or vat. Traveling 
at a rate of much more than ten miles an hour over these 
hollows and depressions was almost unendurable. Some- 
times local motorists and farmers in a spirit of despair 
had cut out a new road in the common clay, while a few 
feet higher up lay the supposedly model "state road," 
entirely unused. At any rate, wherever was the best and 
shortest road, there were repairs most likely to be taking 
place, and this meant a wide circle of anywhere from 
two or three to nine miles. A wretched series of turns 
and twists calculated to try your spirit and temper to 
the breaking point. 

"Detours! Detours! Detours !" I suddenly exclaimed 
at one place in western Ohio. "I wish to heaven we 
could find some part of this state which wasn't full of 
detours." And Speed would remark: "Another damn 
detour! Well, what do you think of that? I'd like to 
have a picture of this one — I would!" 

This, however, being the first we encountered, did not 



112 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

seem so bad. We jounced and bounced around it and 
eventually regained the main road, spinning on to Owego, 
some fifteen or twenty miles away. 

Day was beginning to draw to a close. The wane of 
our afternoons was invariably indicated these August 
days by a little stir of cool air coming from somewhere 
— perhaps hollows and groves — and seeming to have 
a touch of dew and damp in it. Spirals of gnats ap- 
peared spinning in the air, following us a little way and 
then being left behind or overtaken and held flat against 
our coats and caps. I was always brushing off gnats at 
this hour. We were still in that same Susquehanna Val- 
ley I have been describing, rolling on between hills any- 
where from eight hundred to a thousand feet high and 
seeing the long shadows of them stretch out and cover 
the valley. Wherever the sun struck the river it was 
now golden — a bright, lustreful gold — and the hills 
seemed dotted with cattle, some with bells that tinkled. 
Always at this time evening smokes began to curl up 
from chimneys and the labor of the day seemed to be 
ending in a pastoral of delight. 

"Oh, Franklin," I once exclaimed, "this is the ideal 
hour. Can you draw me this?" 

At one point he was prompted to make a sketch. At 
another I wanted to stop and contemplate a beautiful 
bend in the river. Soon Owego appeared, a town say 
of about five thousand, nestling down by the waterside 
amid a great growth of elms, and showing every ele- 
ment of wealth and placid comfort. A group of homes 
along the Susquehanna, their backs perched out over 
it, reminded us of the houses at Florence on the Arno 
and Franklin had to make a sketch of these. Then we 
entered the town over a long, shaky iron bridge and re- 
joiced to see one of the prettiest cities we had yet found. 

Curiously, I was most definitely moved by Owego. 
There is something about the old fashioned, comfortable 
American town at its best — the town where moderate 
wealth and religion and a certain social tradition hold — 
which is at once pleasing and yet comfortable — a grati- 



THE CITY OF SWAMP ROOT 113 

fying and yet almost disturbingly exclusive state of af- 
fairs. At least as far as I am concerned, such places and 
people are antipodal to anything that I could ever again 
think, believe or feel. From contemplating most of the 
small towns with which I have come in contact and the 
little streets of the cities as contrasted with the great, I 
have come to dread the conventional point of view. The 
small mind of the townsmen is antipolar to that of the 
larger, more sophisticated wisdom of the city. It may 
be that the still pools and backwaters of communal life 
as represented by these places is necessary to the preser- 
vation of the state and society. I do not know. Cer- 
tainly the larger visioned must have something to direct 
and the small towns and little cities seem to provide 
them. They are in the main fecundating centres — regions 
where men and women are grown for more labor of the 
same kind. The churches and moral theorists and the 
principle of self preservation, which In the lowly and dull 
works out Into the rule of "live and let live," provide 
the rules of their existence. They do not gain a real 
insight into the fact that they never practise what they 
believe or that merely living, as man is compelled to 
live, he cannot Interpret his life in the terms of the reli- 
gionist or the moral enthusiast. Men are animals with 
dreams of something superior to animallty, but the small 
town soul — or the little sjul anywhere — never gets this 
straight. These are the places in which the churches 
flourish. Here Is where your theologically schooled 
numskull thrives, like the weed that he is. Here is 
where the ordinary family with a little tradition puts an 
inordinate value on that tradition. All the million and 
one notions that have been generated to explain the uni- 
verse here float about in a nebulous mist and create a 
dream world of error, a miasmatic swamp mist above 
which these people never rise. I never was in such a 
place for any period of time without feeling cabined, 
cribbed, confined, intellectually if not emotionally. 

Speed went around the corner to look for a garage and 
Franklin departed in another direction for a bag of 



114 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

popcorn. Left alone, I contemplated a saloon which 
stood next door and on the window of which was pasted 
in gold glass letters "B. B. Delano." Thirsting for a 
glass of beer, I entered, and inside I found the customary 
small town saloon atmosphere, only this room was very 
large and clean and rather vacant. There was a smell 
of whiskey in the cask, a good smell, and a number of 
citizens drinking beer. A solemn looking bartender, 
who was exceptionally bald, was waiting on them. Some 
bits of cheese showed dolefully under a screen. I 
ordered a beer and gazed ruefully about. I was really 
not here, but back in Warsaw, Indiana, in 1886. 

And in here was Mr. B. B. Delano himself, a small, 
dapper, rusty, red faced man, who, though only mod- 
erately intelligent, was pompous to the verge of bursting, 
as befits a small man who has made a moderate suc- 
cess in life. Yet Mr. B. B. Delano, as I was soon to 
discover, had his private fox gnawing at his vitals. There 
was a worm in the bud. Only recently there had been 
a great anti-liquor agitation and a fair proportion of 
the saloons all over the state had been closed. Three 
months before in this very town, at the spring election, 
"no license" had been voted. AH the saloons here, to the 
number of four, would have to be closed, including Mr. 
Delano's, in the heart of the town. That meant that Mr. 
Delano would have to get another business of some kind 
or quit. I saw him looking at me curiously, almost 
mournfully. 

"Touring the state?" he asked. 

"We're riding out to Indiana," I explained. "I come 
from there." 

"Oh, I see. Indiana! That's a nice little trip, isn't 
it? Well, I see lots of machines going through here 
these days, many more than I ever expected to see. It's 
made a difference in my business. Only" — and here 
followed a long account of his troubles. He owned 
houses and lands, a farm of three hundred acres not far 
out, on which he lived, and other properties, but this 
saloon obviously was his pet. "I'm thinking of making 



THE CITY OF SWAMP ROOT 115 

an eating place of It next fall," he added. " 'No 
license' may not last — forever." His eye had a shrewd, 
calculating expression. 

"That's true," I said. 

"It keeps me worried, though," he added doubtfully. 
"I don't lii<:e to leave now. Besides, I'm getting along. 
I'm nearly sixty," he straightened himself up as though 
he meant to prove that he was only forty, "and I like 
my farm. It really wouldn't kill me if I never could 
open this place any more." But I could see that he was 
talking just to hear himself talk, boasting. He was des- 
perately fond of his saloon and all that it represented; 
not ashamed, by any means. 

"But there's Newark and New York," I said. "I 
should think you'd like to go down there." 

"I might," he agreed; "perhaps I will. It's a long 
way for me, though. Won't you have another drink — 
you and your friends?" By now Franklin and Speed 
were returning and Mr. Delano waved a ceremonious, 
inclusive hand, as if to extend all the courtesies of the 
establishment. 

The bartender was most alert — a cautious, appre- 
hensive person. I could see that Mr. Delano was in- 
clined to be something of a martinet. For some reason 
he had conceived of us as personages — richer than him- 
self, no doubt — and was anxious to live up to our ideas 
of things and what he thought we might expect. 

"Well, now," he said, as we were leaving, "if you ever 
come through here again you might stop and see if I'm 
still here." 

As. Speed threw on the ignition spark and the machine 
began to rumble and shake, Mr. Delano proceeded up 
the handsome small town street with quite a stride. I 
could see that he felt himself very much of a personage — 
one of the leading figures of Owego. 



CHAPTER XV 

A RIDE BY NIGHT 

It was a glorious night — quite wonderful. There are 
certain summer evenings when nature produces a poetic, 
emotionalizing mood. Life seems to talk to you in 
soft whispers of wonderful things it is doing. Marshes 
and pools, if you encounter any, exhale a mystic breath. 
You can look into the profiles of trees and define 
strange gorgon-like countenances — all the crones and 
spectres of a thousand years. (What images of horror 
have I not seen in the profiles of trees!) Every cottage 
seems to contain a lamp of wonder and to sing. Every 
garden suggests a tryst of lovers. A river, if you fol- 
low one, glimmers and whimpers. The stars glow and 
sing. They bend down like lambent eyes. All nature 
improvises a harmony — a splendid harmony — one of her 
rarest symphonies indeed. 

And tonight as we sped out of Owego and I rested 
in the deep cushions of the car it seemed as if some such 
perfect symphony was being interpreted. Somewhere 
out of the great mystery of the unknowable was coming 
this rare and lovely something. What is God, I asked, 
that he should build such scenes as this? His forces of 
chemistry! His powers of physics! We complain and 
complain, but scenes like these compensate for many 
things. They weave and sing. But what are they? 
Here now are treetoads cheep-cheeping. What do they 
know of life — or do their small bodies contain a Vt'orld 
of wonder, all dark to my five dull senses? And these 
sweet shadows — rich and fragrant — now mellowing, 
now poignant! I looked over my right shoulder quite 
by accident and there was a new moon hanging low in 
the west, a mere feather, its faintness reflected in the 

ii6 



A RIDE BY NIGHT 117 

bosom of a still stream. We were careening along a 
cliff overhanging this river and as we did so along came 
a brightly lighted train following the stream bed and 
rushing somewhere, probably to New York. I thought 
of all the people on it and what they were doing, what 
dreaming, where going; what trysts, what plots, what 
hopes nurturing. I looked into a cottage door and there 
a group of people were singing and strumming — their 
voices followed us down the wind in music and laughter. 

Somewhere along this road at some wayside garage 
we had to stop for oil and gas, as Speed referred to 
gasoline — always one quart of oil, I noticed, and about 
seven gallons of gasoline, the price being anywhere from 
$1.25 to $1.75, according to where we chanced to be. 
I was drowsing and dreaming, thinking how wonderful it 
all was and how pleasant our route would surely be, 
when a man came up on a motorcycle, a strained and 
wiry looking individual, who said he had just come 
through western New York and northern Ohio — one of 
those fierce souls who cover a thousand miles a day on a 
motorcycle. They terrify me. 

Franklin, with an honest interest in the wellbeing of 
his car, was for gathering information as to roads. 
There was no mystery about our immediate course, 
for we were in a region of populous towns — Waverley, 
Elmira, Corning, Hornell — which on our map were 
marked as easy of access. The roads were supposed to 
be ideal. The great proposition before us, however, was 
whether once having reached Elmira we would go due 
north to Canandaigua and Rochester, thereby striking, 
as someone told us, a wonderful state road to Buffalo — 
the road — or whether we would do as I had been wishing 
and suggesting, cut due west, following the northern 
Pennsylvania border, and thereby save perhaps as much 
as a hundred and fifty miles in useless riding north and 
south. 

Franklin was for the region that offered the best roads. 
I was for adventure, regardless of machines or roads. 
We had half compromised on the thought that it might 



ii8 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

be well to visit Warsaw, New York, which lay about half 
way between the two opposing routes with which we 
were opposing each other, and this solely because the 
name of one of my home towns in Indiana was Warsaw 
and this Warsaw, as my pamphlet showed, was about 
the same size. It was a sort of moonshiny, nonsensical 
argument all around; and this man who had just come 
through Warsaw from Buffalo had no particular good 
word to say for the roads. It was a hilly country, he 
said. "You climb one hill to get into Warsaw and five 
others to get out, and they're terrors." I could see a 
look of uncertainty pass over Franklin's face. Farewell 
to Warsaw, I thought. 

But another bystander was not so sure. All the roads 
from here on leading toward Buffalo were very good. 
Many machines came through Warsaw. My spirits 
rose. We decided to postpone further discussion until 
we reached Elmira and could consult with an automobile 
club, perhaps. We knew we would not get farther than 
Elmira tonight; for we had chaffered away another hour, 
and it was already dusk. 

We never experienced a more delightful evening on 
the whole trip. It was all so moving — the warm air, the 
new silvery moon, the trees on the hills forming dark 
shadows, the hills themselves gradually growing dim and 
fading into black, the twinkling lights here and there, fire- 
flies, the river, this highroad always high, high above 
the stream. There were gnats but no mosquitoes — at 
least none when we were In motion — and our friend 
Speed, guiding the car with a splendid technique, was still 
able between twists and turns and high speeds and low 
speeds to toss back tale after tale of a daring and yet 
childlike character, which kept me laughing all the while. 
Speed was so naive. He had such innocently gross and 
yet comfortable human things to relate of horses, cows, 
dogs, farm girls, farm boys, the studfarm business, with 
which he was once connected, and so on. 

"Put on a slip and come down," he called to her. 

"So she slipped on the stairs and came down." 



A RIDE BY NIGHT 119 

(Do you remember that one? They were all like 
that. ) 

Once out of Owego, we were soon in Waverley, a town 
say of ten or fifteen thousand population, which we mis- 
took at first for Elmira. Its streets were so wide and 
clean, its houses so large and comfortable, we saw on 
entering. I called Franklin's attention to the typical 
American atmosphere of this town too — the America of 
a slightly older day. There was a time not long ago 
when Americans felt that the beginning and end of all 
things was the home. Not anything great in construction 
or tragically magnificent, but just a comfortable home in 
which to grow and vegetate. Everything had to be sacri- 
ficed to it. It came to have a sacrosanct character: all the 
art, the jov, the hope which a youthful and ingenuous 
people were feeling and believing, expressed, or attempted 
to express themselves, in the home. It was a place of 
great trees, numerous flowerbeds, a spacious lawn, 
French windows, a square cupola, verandas, birdhouses. 
All the romance of a youthful spirit crept into these things 
and still lingers. You can feel as you look at them how 
virtuous the owners felt themselves to be, and how per- 
fect their children, what marvels of men and women these 
latter were to become — pure and above reproach. 

Alas for a dusty world that would not permit it — that 
will never permit any perfect thing to be. These houses, 
a little faded now, a little puffy with damp, a little heavier 
for paint, a little grey or brown or greenish black, sug- 
gest by their atmosphere that they have yielded up crops 
of children. We have seen several generations go by 
since they were built. Have they been any better than 
their sires, if as good? It seems to me as If I myself 
have witnessed a great revolt against all the binding per- 
fection which these lovely homes represented. In my 
youthful day it was taken for granted that we were to 
be good and beautiful and true, and God was to reward 
us in heaven. We were to die and go straight before 
the throne of grace. Each of us was to take one wife or 
one husband to our heart and hearth. We were never 



I20 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

to swindle or steal or lie or do anything wrong whatso- 
ever. America was to make the sermon on the mount 
come true — and look at us. Have we done it? 

I call attention to Pittsburg, Chicago, and New York, 
to go no further: to the orgies of trust building, stock 
gambling, stock watering, get rich quick-ing; to the scan- 
dals of politics and finance; to the endless divorces and 
remarriages and all the license of the stage and the 
hungry streets of harlots and kept women. Have we 
made the ten commandments work? Do not these small 
towns with their faded ideal homes stand almost as 
Karnak and Memphis — In their frail way pointing the 
vanity of religious and moral ideals In this world? We 
have striven for some things but not the ideals of the 
sermon on the mount. Our girls have not been virtuous 
beyond those of any other nation — our boys more honest 
than those of any other land. We have simply been 
human, and a little more human for being told that we 
were not or ought not to be so. 

In Waverley, despite the fact that we had determined 
to reach Elmlra before stopping for dinner, we became 
suddenly hungry and while "cruising," as Speed put It, 
down the principal street, about three quarters of a mile 
long, with various stores and movies In full swing, we 
discovered an irresistible "lunch car" crowded in between 
two buildings. Inside was the usual "hash slinger," at 
his pots and pans. He was a swarthy skinned black- 
haired youth, this impresario with a penchant for doing 
his work gallantly, like an acrobat. He had nothing to 
offer save pork and beans, ham and eggs, various sand- 
wiches, and one kind of pie. All the remainder of his 
stock had been disposed of. I ordered ham and eggs — 
somehow in small towns I always feel safest in so doing. 
It was amusing to watch him "flip" an egg with a turn 
of the wrist and at the same time hold bantering converse 
with a frowsy headed youth whose face was pressed to 
a small porthole giving out onto the sidewalk. Every 
now and then, as we were eating, some familiar of the 
town would tap on the window to give evidence of his 



A RIDE BY NIGHT 121 

passing, and soon the place was invaded by five evening 
roysterers, smart boys of the town, who made all sorts 
of quips and jests as to the limited bill of fare. 

"How about a whole egg? Have you got one?" 

"Do you ever keep any salt and pepper here, Jake?" 

"Somebody said you'd have a new pie, tomorrow. Is 
that right?" 

"What's the matter with the old one?" inquired some- 
one. 

"Why, a feller bit into it by mistake. They're goin' 
to sell it to the shootin' gallery for a target." 

"Why don't you fellers get up a new line 0' dope?" 
interjected the host at one place. "My pies ain't in it 
with what you're springin'." 

This drew a laugh and more chatter. 

As I sat on a stool looking out and munching my 
"ham-and" I could not help thinking of the high spirits 
of all these towns we were passing. In Europe, in places 
of four or five times the size of this — Rotterdam, Am- 
sterdam, The Hague, Dover, Amiens, Florence, Perugia, 
even Venice, I might say, I found no such flare nor any 
such zest for just living. What is it about Americans 
that gives all their small towns such an air? Somebody 
had already introduced the five-light lamp standard here, 
in one or two places. The stores were all brightly 
lighted and you could see boys and girls going up and 
down in the hope of those chance encounters with ad- 
venture which youths and maidens of all strata so crave. 
Noting all this, I said to myself that in Europe somehow, 
in towns of this size and much larger, things always 
seemed duller. Here in America there are always these 
boys and girls of no particular social caste, I take it, 
whose homes are not very attractive, whose minds and 
bodies are craving a touch of vitality — gay contact with 
someone of the other sex — and who find their social life 
' in this way, on the streets. No doubt at this point some- 
' one will rise to say that they need more supervision. I 
am not so sure. As life expresses itself, so it should be, 
' I fancy. All my sympathies go out to such young peo- 



122 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

pie, for I recall with what earnestness as a boy I used to 
do this same thing — how I wished and longed and how 
my body tingled at the thoughts of love and the promise 
of life to come. 

Once on the road again, I hummed and meditated until 
suddenly I found myself dreaming. I wasn't on the high 
road between Binghamton and Elmira at all but in some 
happy land that hadn't anything to do with motoring — 
a land of youth and affection. Suddenly I sat up, won- 
dering whether I had keeled over toward Franklin, and 
he had discovered that I had been asleep. 

"We don't have to spend the night in Elmira, do we?" 
I ventured cautiously. 

"Oh, no," said Franklin, amiably. 

"Since it's so late, the next hotel we come to, we'd 
better tie up, don't you think, — I'm getting sleepy." 

"All right for me," agreed Franklin. I couldn't tell 
whether he was sleepy or not. 

Presently a great square old house came into view with 
trees and flowers and a light burning before it. It was 
so still now we seemed to have the night all to ourselves. 
No automobiles were in sight. We debated whether we 
would stay here. 

"Oh, let's risk it," said Franklin. "It's only for one 
night, anyhow." 

We were greeted by a tall, angular country boy with 
the air of one who is half asleep and a habit of running 
his hand through his hair. He had been serving three 
men in the rear with drinks. He led us up warm, stuffy, 
carpeted halls, lighted by oil lamps, into a small, musty 
chamber with a large, yellow, creaky bed. This and 
another similar apartment for Speed were all he could 
offer us. 

It was hot. A few mosquitoes were buzzing. Still 
the prospect of a deep black sky and stars through the 
open window was soothing. I made a few joyless com- 
ments, which Franklin received in silence ; and then we 
slept. 



CHAPTER XVI 

CHEMUNG 

Next morning I was aroused at dawn, it seemed to 
me, by a pounding on a nearby door. 

"Get up, you drunken hound!" called a voice which 
was unmistakably that of the young man who had rented 
us the room. "That's right, snore, after you stay up all 
night," he added; and he beat the door vehemently again. 

I wanted to get up and protest against his inconsid- 
erateness of the slumber of others and would have, I 
think, only I was interested to discover who the "drunken 
hound" might be and why this youth should be so abrupt 
with him. After all, I reflected, we were in a very poor 
hotel, the boy doing the knocking was a mere farm hand 
translated to the country hotel business, and anyhow we 
should soon be out of here. It was all life and color 
and if I didn't like it I needn't have stayed here the 
night before. Franklin would have gone on. But who 
was the "drunken hound"? The sound had ceased 
almost as abruptly as it had begun. The boy had gone 
downstairs. After awhile the light grew stronger and 
Franklin seemed to stir. I rose and pulled the shutters 
to, but could not sleep any more. The world outside 
looked so inviting. There were trees and great fields 
of grass and a few white houses scattered here and there 
and a heavy dew. I at once thought how delightful it 
would be to get up and ride on again. 

"This is a typical middle west country hotel, even 
if it is in New York," said Franklin, sitting up and run- 
ning his hand through his tousled hair. "That fellow 
he's calling a 'drunken hound' must be his father. I 
heard him tell Speed last night that his father slept 
in there." 

123 



124 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

Presently we threw open the shutters and made what 
use we could of the bowl and pitcher and the two small 
towels provided. 

"How did you ever come to be an artist, Franklin?" 
I inquired idly, as I watched him stare out at the sur- 
rounding fields, while he sat putting on his shoes. "You 
told me once that you were a farm hand until you were 
nearly twentyfive." 

"Nearly twentysix," he corrected. "Oh, I always 
wanted to draw and did, a little, only I didn't know any- 
thing about it. Finally I took a course in a correspond- 
ence school." 

"Get out," I replied incredulously. 

"Yes, I did," he went on. "They sent me instruc- 
tions how to lay in with pen and ink various sorts of line 
technique on sheets of paper that were ruled off in 
squares — long lines, short lines, stipple, 'crosspatch' 
and that sort of thing. They made some other sugges- 
tions that had some value : what kind of ink and pens and 
paper to buy. I used to try to draw with ordinary writing 
ink and pens." 

"But a correspondence school " I protested. 

"I know," he said. "It seems ridiculous. It's true, 
just the same. I didn't know where else to go and be- 
sides I didn't have the money. There was a school in 
Indianapolis but they wanted too much — I tried it awhile 
but the instructor knew very little. The correspondence 
school wanted only six dollars for fifteen lessons, and 
they took it in part payments." 

He smiled reminiscently. 

"Well, how did you come to get started, finally?' 

"Oh, I worked most of my method out for myself. 
Art is a matter of feeling, anyhow. The drawing in 
squares gave me an idea which made me abandon the 
squares. I used to write poetry too, of sorts — or tried 
to — and one day I wrote a poem and decided to illustrate 
it and take it down to one of the Indianapolis newspapers, 
because I had seen others in there somewhat like it — I 
mean illustrated in pen and ink. It was a poem about 



CHEMUNG 125 

October, or something. My father thought I was wast- 
ing my time. He wanted me to tend the farm. But I 
took the poem down and they bought it right away — 
gave me six dollars for it." 

"And then what?" I asked, deeply interested. 

"Well, that rather astonished my father — as much, 
if not more, than it did me. He never imagined there 
was any money in that sort of thing — and unless you 

were going to make money " He waved his hand 

deprecatively. 

"I know," I agreed. "And then what?" 

"Well, they bought another and my father began to 
think there was something in it — in art, you know, if you 
want to call it that, in Indiana, at that time !" — he paused. 
"Still I can't tell you how much feeling I put in those 
things, either, — the trees, the birds flying, the shocked 
corn. I used to stop when I was plowing or reaping 
and stand and look at the sky and the trees and the clouds 
and wish I could paint them or do something. The big 
cities seemed so far off. But it's Indiana that seems won- 
derful to me now." 

"And to me," I said. "Like a mother. Because we 
were brought up there, I suppose." 

Sitting on the edge of this wretched hotel bed, Frank- 
lin smiled vaguely, his fine hand moving through his glis- 
tening white hair. 

"And then?" 

"Well, one day the editor in Indianapolis said I ought 
to send some of my drawing down to New York, or go 
down — that I would get along. He thought I ought to 
studv art." 

"Yes?" 

"Well, I saved enough drawing for the Indianapolis 
News and writing poetry and pitching hay and plowing 
wheat to go that autumn to Chicago; I spent three 
months in the Art Institute. Being in those days a good 
Sunday School boy, a publisher of religious literature, 
socalled, bought some work of me and at Christmas time 
I sold a half page to the old Chicago Record. The fol- 



126 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

lowing fall I went to New York. I found a little room 
and sold sketches, and then I got on a paper — the News. 
You remember." 

"Certainly. Was that your first place?" 

"The very first." 

"And I thought you had been in New York years and 
years." 

I can see Franklin even yet, standing before his draw- 
ingboard in the newspaper office, making horrible Sun- 
day "layouts." He was so gentle, good looking and al- 
together attractive. 

"Yes, and then what?" 

"Well, after my year's contract which started with 
the News had expired, I tried freelancing. This didn't 
go very well; so I determined not to spend all my sav- 
ings visiting art editors. I boarded a boat one day and 
went to Europe. Four months later, I returned to New 
York and rented a studio. After I had paid my first 
month's rent I was broke. At the magazines I would 
say that I had just returned from abroad, so that I got 
plenty of work, but I owned neither easel nor chair. 
After a few days the janitor, if you please, came to me 
and said that he and his wife had been talking about me 
and thought perhaps I needed some money and that they 
had eighty dollars upstairs which I could have right 
away if I wanted to use it. It sounds wild, but it's true. 
They said I could take it and pay it back whenever I got 
ready, in six months or a year or two years." 

My estimate of poor old human nature was rapidly 
rising. 

"Did you take it?" 

"Yes, a part of it. I had to, in a way; but I paid it 
back in a little while. I often think of those people." 

We stopped talking about his career then and went 
down to look in the diningroom and after our car. The 
place was so unsatisfactory and it was still so early we 
decided not to remain for breakfast. 

As I was sitting on the porch, Franklin having gone 
off to rout out Speed, an automobile approached contain- 



CHEMUNG 127 

ing a man and three women and bearing a plumcolored 
pennant labeled "Lansing, Michigan." Pennants seem 
to be a habit with cars coming from the west. These 
tourists halted, and I was morally certain that they did 
so because of my presence here. They thought others 
were breakfasting. With much fluttering of their motor- 
ing regalia, the women stepped out and shook themselves 
while their escort departed to make inquiries. Presently 
he returned and with him our young host, who in the clear 
morning light seemed much more a farmer than ever 
— a plow hand. Something about his crude, untutored 
strength and energy appealed to me. I thought of his 
drunken father and how he might be trying to make the 
best of this place, against lack of experience and with a 
ne'er do well parent on his hands. Now he fixed me 
with a steady eye. 

"You people goin' to have breakfast?" he asked. 
"No," I replied, pleasantly. 
"You ain't?" 
"No." 

"Well," he went on, turning to the newcomers, "then 
you people can have breakfast." 

So, I thought, these people will have to eat the very 
poor breakfast that is being prepared for us. It will 
serve them right — the voilgar, showy creatures. As we 
were departing, however, Franklin explained that there 
was an extra charge which he had not troubled to dispute, 
for something which we had apparently not had. I 
explained that it was for the meal we had not eaten. 

Once more, then, we drove off along more of those 
delightful country roads which in the early morning sun, 
with the fields glistening with dew, and laborers making 
their way to work, and morning birds on the wing, were 
too lovely. The air, after our stuffy room, was so re- 
freshing, / began to sing. Little white houses hugged 
distant green hillsides, their windows shining like bur- 
nished gold. Green branches hung over and almost 
brushed our faces. The sky, the shade, the dew was 
heavenly. I thought of Franklin and his father and of 



128 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

him in his father's fields at dawn, looking at the trees^ 
those fog wrapped trees of dawn — and wishing he was 
an artist. 

Meanwhile, my mind was busy with the sharp con- 
trast this whole progress was presenting to my tour of 
Europe, even the poorest and most deserted regions I 
visited. In England, France, Germany, Italy, Holland, 
Belgium, Switzerland, there was so much to see — so 
much that was memorable or quaint or strange or artistic 
— but here; well, here there were just towns like this one 
and Binghamton and Scranton and Wilkes-Barre, places 
the best for which you could say was that they were brisk 
and vivid and building something which in the future 
will no doubt seem very beautiful, — I'm sure of it. 

And yet I kept saying to myself that notwithstanding 
all this, all I could sum up against America even, it was 
actually better than Europe. And why? Well, because 
of a certain indefinable something — either of hope or 
courage or youth or vigor or illusion, what you will; 
but the average American, or the average European 
transplanted to America, is a better or at least a more 
dynamic person than the average European at home, 
even the Frenchman. He has more grit, verve, humor, 
or a lackadaisical slapdash method which is at once effi- 
cient, self-sustaining, comforting. His soul, in spite of 
all the chains wherewith the ruling giants are seeking to 
fetter him, is free. As yet, regardless of what is or 
may be, he does not appear to realize that he is not 
free or that he is in any way oppressed. There are no 
ruling classes, to him. He sings, whistles, jests, laughs 
boisterously; matches everybody for cigars, beers, meals; 
chews tobacco, spits freely, smokes, swears, rolls to and 
fro, cocks his hat on one side of his head, and altogether 
by and large is a regular "hell of a feller." He doesn't 
know anything about history, or very little, and doesn't 
give a damn. He doesn't know anything about art, — but, 
my God, who with the eternal hills and all nature for a 
background cannot live without representative art? His 
food isn't extraordinarily good, though plentiful, his 



CHEMUNG 129 

clothes are made by Stein-Bloch, or Hart, Schaffner & 
Marx, and altogether he is a noisy, blatant, contented 
mess — but oh, the gay, selfsufficient soul of him! no 
moans! no tears! Into the teeth of destiny he marches, 
whistling "Yankee Doodle" or "Turi^:ey in the Straw." 
In the parlance of his own streets, "Can you beat him?" 

Nevertheless my sympathies kept reverting to the 
young innkeeper and I finally got out a map to see if 
I could discover the name of the very small town or 
crossroads where this hotel was situated. It proved to 
be Chemung. 

Instantly I recalled the story of a gubernatorial aspir- 
ant of twenty years before who had come from this very 
place or county in New York. Previously a district at- 
torney or lieutenant governor, he had one day been nom- 
inated for the governorship, on the reigning ticket. His 
chances were splendid. There was scarcely a cloud in 
the sky. He was believed to be brilliant, promising, a 
presidential possibility of the future. An important 
meeting was called in New York, I believe, at Madison 
Square Garden very likely, to ratify and celebrate his 
nomination. All the elite politically who customarily 
grace such events were present. The Garden was filled. 
But, alas, at the sound of the applause called forth by 
his opening burst of oratory, he paused and took off his 
coat — quite as he would at an upstate rally, here in 
Chemung. The audience gasped. The sophisticated 
leaders of the city groaned. What! Take off your coat 
at a political address in Madison Square Garden? A 
candidate for governorship of the state of New York? 
It completely destroyed him. He was never heard of 
more. I, a mere stripling at the time, brooded long over 
this sudden turn of fortune as exemplifying a need to 
discriminate between audiences and classes. It put a 
cool, Jesuitical thought in my mind that I did not soon 
forget. "Never remove your coat in the wrong place," 
was a maxim that dwelt with me for some time. And 
here we were in Chemung, the place to which this man 
subsequently retired, to meditate, no doubt, over the 



130 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

costly follies and errors we sometimes commit without 
the ability or the knowledge to guard against them. 

An hour and a half later we were having breakfast 
at Elmira, a place much like Binghamton, in the cus- 
tomary "Rathskeller-Grill-Cafe de Berlin." This one 
was all embossed with gold paper and Teutonic hunting 
scenes, and contained the usual heavy mission tables, to 
say nothing of a leftover smell of cigarettes burned 
the night before. There were negro waiters too, and 
another group of motorists having a most elaborate 
breakfast and much talk of routes and cars and distant 
cities. Here it was necessary for us to decide the course 
of our future progress, so we shortly set off in search of 
the local automobile club. [ 



CHAPTER XVII 

CHICKEN AND WAFFLES AND THE TOON o' BATH 

We found an official of the Elmira Automobile Club, 
a small, stoop-shouldered, bald, eye-sockety person who 
greeted us with a genial rub of his hands and a hearty 
smirk as though we were just the persons, among all 
others, whom he was most pleased to see. 

"Come right in, gentlemen," he called, as Franklin 
and I appeared in the doorway. "What can I do for 
you? Looking for maps or a route or something?" 

"Tell me," I inquired, anxious to make my point at 
once, "are there any good roads due west of here which 
would take us straight into Ohio, without going north to 
Buffalo?" 

He scratched his head. 

"No, I don't think there are," he replied; "most of 
the good roads are north of here, around Rochester, 
where the main line of traffic is. Now there is a good 
road — or a part of one" — and then he commenced a long 
rambling account of some road that was about to be 
built — but as yet — etc., etc. I saw my idea of a some- 
what different trip going glimmering. 

"But here," he went on, picking up one of those 
maps which various hotels and towns combine to get up 
to attract automobile trade, "what's the matter with the 
Onondaga trail from here on? That takes you up 
through Corning, Bath, Avoca, Dansville, Geneseo, and 
Avon, and up there you strike the main road through 
Batavia right into Buffalo. That's a fine road, good hard 
-nacadam nearly all the way, and when you get to Avon 
/ou strike one of the best hotels anywhere. When you 
>;et up there you just roll your car right into the grounds 
—walk into the restaurant and ask 'em to give you 

131 



132 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

some of their chicken and waffles. You'll just be about 
ready for it when you get there and you'll thank me 
for telling you." 

I fancied I could see the cloven hoof of the Avon 
hotel keeper mystically present in that speech. How- 
ever, far to the left on another branch of the same trail 
I saw my beloved Warsaw, New York. 

"What's the matter with the road up through here?" 
I asked, putting my finger on it. 

"Well, I'll tell you," he said, "there it is mostly dirt 
and there are no good dirt roads as you know, if youVe 
autoed much. A man called up here this morning and 
wanted to know if there were any good dirt roads out of 
here to Utica and I said to him, 'My dear sir, there aren't 
any good dirt roads anywhere. There ain't any such 
thing.' " 

I seemed to see the Avon hotel keeper smiling and 
beckoning once more — a chicken in one hand, a plate of 
waffles in the other — but he didn't appeal to me at all. 
These hotel routes and these Americans who are so quick 
to capitalize everj^hing — motor routes, scenery, water 
falls, everything! "Curses, curses, curses," I said to my- 
self softly, "why must everything be turned into busi- 
ness?" Besides, many portions of the roads over which 
we had come in New Jersey and Pennsylvania were dirt 
and they were excellent. I smiled serenely, determined 
to make the best of whatever happened and however 
much I might want to go to Warsaw, New York. 

But our friend seemed determined to send us via Avon 
and Batavia. He went on telling us how anxious he had 
been to convince the man who had telephoned that there 
were no good dirt roads, but I was happy to note that 
apparently he had not been successful. The man prob- 
ably knew something about state and dirt roads, as we 
had found them, and refused to take his direction. I 
was pleased to think that whatever Franklin might be 
concluding, because of his advice, we still had some dis- 
tance yet to travel before we would have to decide not 
to go to Warsaw — all of seventyfive or a hundred miles 













BEYOND ELMIRA 
Early morning 



CHICKEN AND WAFFLES 133 

anyhow. For, extending that distance our proposed 
route was directly toward Warsaw, and that cheered me 
a bit. 

And now beyond Elmira for a distance of one hundred 
and twenty miles or more, all the way into Warsaw, we 
had one of the most delightful days of any — a perfectly 
heavenly day, the weather so fine, the sky so blue, and 
not a tinge of anything save harvesting weather any- 
where. As we rolled along the sound of the reaper was 
heard in the land — great mechanical combinations of 
engines and threshers and grain separators and straw 
stack builders — a great flume or trough reaching high 
in the air and carrying out the grainless straw and chaff, 
blowing it on a single mound. It was really wonder- 
ful to see America's daily bread being garnered mile 
after mile, and mile after mile. 

And the marvelous herds of cattle, mostly Holstein, 
which yield the milk supply for the trains that pour 
nightly and daily towards that vast plexus of cities called 
New York, with its eight million people. 

In this Pennsylvania-New York valley alone, which 
seemed to stretch unbroken from Wilkes-Barre to west- 
ern New York, from the Chesapeake really to the falls 
of the Geneseo, there were indeed cattle on a thousand 
hills. 

There was too much traffic along the first portion of 
the road out of Elmira and by now I was beginning to 
get an idea of the magnitude of the revolution which 
the automobile had effected. Thirty years ago these 
roads would have been traveled as elsewhere, if at all, 
by wagons and buggies, but now on this Saturday morn- 
ing the ways were crowded with farmers coming to town 
in automobiles, or as Speed always put it, "in autos and 
Fords." Why this useful little machine should be sniffed 
at is a puzzle to me, for it seemed to look nearly as well 
and to travel quite as fast as any of the others. The 
farmers were using it as a family carryall — taking in 
sacks of wheat or other products to town and bringing 
home groceries and other needfuls. 



134 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

In Corning, a town of about ten or twelve thousand 
population, some twenty miles west of Elmira, we found 
a city as prosperous as most of the others apparently, 
and as naive. It being Saturday, the natives from the 
surrounding country were beginning to come in, but I 
did not notice any of that rural flavor which had seemed 
to characterize them in my youth. On leaving every 
town where we had loitered too long we made a solemn 
pact that we would not waste so much time in unimpor- 
tant towns that were nearly all alike; but whenever one 
rose into view and we dashed into a principal street lined 
with stores and crowded with people, it was beyond hu- 
man nature not to get out and look around a little. 
There was always the excuse of picture cards for a record 
of our trip, or meals or a drink of some kind or even 
popcorn (Franklin's favorite), or peanuts or candy. 
Think of it — three grown men getting out to buy candy ! 

Here in Corning it was that I first noticed that Frank- 
lin had a peculiarly sharp nose and eye for ferreting out 
ideal rural types. Those who have read Hamlin Gar- 
land's "Main Traveled Roads" will understand Instantly 
what I mean — not the crude, obvious, one might almost 
say burlesque types, but those more difficult and pathetic 
characters who do their best not to seem to be of the 
country and yet who are always so obviously of it. I 
tried my best, as Franklin nudged my arm at different 
times, to formulate to myself what It Is about these in- 
teresting individuals — the boy or woman or young man 
from the country — dressed in those peculiarly new and 
store-y store clothes that makes them so appealing and 
so pathetic to me. In "Main Traveled Roads" one gets 
a sense of It all. Times have changed a little since then 
and yet here were the same types — the red-cheeked, wide- 
eyed boy In the new brown suit and twentyfive cent hat 
looking at people as If all the world and Its every gesture 
were a surprise, and the women walking about streets 
Impossible, one must say, from a social and Intellectual 
point of view, trying to look as if they had something to 
do and some place to go. I always suspect them of 



CHICKEN AND WAFFLES 135 

eating their meals in some wagon back of some store — 
a cold snack brought along for the occasion or asking the 
privilege of adding a few things out of a basket to the 
repast provided, say, by a glass of ice-cream soda. 

Oh, the lovely roads by which they came, the sylvan 
nooks where their homes are, the small schoolhouses, 
the wide spacious fields with crows and blackbirds and 
bluejays for company, the grey snowy fields in winter, 
these black filigree trees for a border — and the great 
cities which haunt the dreams of these boys and girls 
and finally lure so many of them away. 

Beyond Corning came more delightful small towns, 
"Painted Post," with a church so singularly plain, a small 
spire so thin and tall that it was truly beautiful; Camp- 
bell, with one of these typical rural streets of homes 
which make you wish that you might stay for days, visit- 
ing country relatives; Savona, a hot country store street 
where Speed stopped for oil and gas. Anent Savona, 
which hadn't a tree to bless Itself with, where Franklin 
and I sat and baked while Speed replenished his stores, 
Franklin told me the story of why the principal street of 
Carmel, his home town, was treeless. Once there had 
been trees there, beautiful ones, but with the arrival of 
the metropolitan spirit and a desire to catch passing 
automobile trade It was decided to widen the street some- 
what and make it more commercial and therefore more 
attractive. The idea which first popped into the minds 
of all who desired metropolitan Improvement was that 
the trees should come down. 

"Why?" asked some lover of the trees as things of 
beauty. 

"Well, you don't see any trees In Main Street, In- 
dianapolis, do you?" replied another triumphantly. 

The battle was lost and won right there — Main Street, 
Indianapolis, was the criterion. "Are we going to be 
like Indianapolis — or Chicago or New York — or are 
we not?" I can hear some sturdy rural asking. "If 
not, let the trees stand." 

What rural would save any tree as against being like 



136 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

New York, I'd like to know. That Is why, I suspect, 
we baked for fifteen minutes in Savona. 

And then came "the toon o' Bath," as we forever after 
called it, for a reason which will appear, — a dear, lovely, 
summery town, with a square so delightful that on sight 
of it we instantly got out and loitered in the shade for 
over an hour, in spite of our resolution. 

Here in the east, for some reason, this idea of a plain 
green open square, without any execrable reproduction 
of an American Civil War soldier perched high aloft 
on a tall shaft, has remained untainted. Wilkes-Barre, 
New Milford, Owego and now Bath had one, and in 
New England and New Jersey I have seen scores. The 
county offices are as a rule put around it, but not in it, 
as is the rule farther west. 

In the west — everywhere west of Pennsylvania and 
sometimes east of it — a public square is not complete 
without a courthouse or at least a soldiers' or sailors' 
monument — or both — planted in the centre of it, and 
these almost an exact reproduction of every other court- 
house or monument for one thousand miles about. The 
idea of doing anything original is severely frowned upon. 
Whatever else you may be in America or elsewhere, ap- 
parently you must not be different. Hold fast to the 
type, and do as your ancestors did! Build all court- 
houses and monuments as courthouses and monuments 
should be built — that is, true to tradition. If you don't 
believe this, visit any countyseat between New York and 
Seattle. 

But this square, in Bath, like some others in New 
England and that in Owego, was especially pleasing be- 
cause it had no courthouse and no monuments, merely a 
bandstand and a great spread of benches placed under 
wide-armed and sturdy trees. Under their high branches, 
which spread as a canopy over the walks and benches 
below, were festooned, on wires, a number of lights for 
the illumination of the place at night. About it, on the 
different sides, were residences, churches, a public school, 
some county offices, and to the east stores, all with a 




I'-RANKLIN DREAMS OVER A RIVER BEVOXD SAVON'A 



CHICKEN AND WAFFLES 137 

peaceful, rural flavor. Several farmer families were 
eating their meals from baskets as they sat in wagons, 
their horses unhitched and fastened behind. On the 
benches were seated a number of old soldiers idling in 
the shade. Why old soldiers should be so numerous at 
this day and date was more than I could understand, and 
I said so. It was now fiftyfour years since the war be- 
gan, and here they were, scores of them apparently, all 
fairly hale and looking scarcely sixtyfive. They must 
have been at least seventy years each to have been of 
any service in the great war of the rebellion. 

Near here, we discovered, there was an old soldiers' 
home — a state home — and this being Saturday afternoon, 
the streets were full of them. They looked to be a 
crotchety, cantankerous crew. Later on we saw many of 
them in the road leading out to their institution — drunk. 
In order to strike up a conversation with some of the 
old soldiers, we asked three of them sitting on a bench 
about a drunken woman who was pirouetting before them 
in a frowzy, grimy gaiety. 

"That," said one, a little, thin-shouldered, clawy type 
of man with a high, cracked voice, a clownish expression, 
and a laugh as artificial and mechanical as any laugh 
could be, a sort of standard, everyday habit laugh, "Oh, 
that's the Pete and Duck." (I give it as it sounded.) 

"The Pete and Duck!" I exclaimed. 

"Yes, sir, the Pete and Duck" — and then came the 
high, cackling, staccato laugh. "That's what they call 
her round here, the Pete and Duck. I dunno howsoever 
they come to call her that, but that's what they call her, 

the Pete and Duck, and a drunken old she is, too, 

—just an old drunken girl" — and then he went off into 
a gale of pointless laughter, slapping his knees and open- 
ing his mouth very wide. 

"That's all I've ever hearn her called. Ain't that so, 
Eddie — he, he! ho, ho! ha, ha! Yes — that's what they 
alius call 'er — the Pete and Duck. She's nothin' but 
just a poor old drunken fool like many another in this 
here toon o' Bath — he, he ! ho, ho ! ha, ha ! 



138 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

"But then she ain't the only funny thing in Bath 
neither. There's a buildin' they're puttin' up over there," 
he continued, "that has front and back but no sides — ■ 
the only buildin' in the toon o' Bath that ain't got no 
sides but just front and back. He, he! ha, ha! ho, ho!" 

We looked in the direction of this building, but it was 
nothing more than an ordinary store building, being 
erected between two others by the party wall process. 
It was a bank, apparently, and the front was being put 
together out of white marble. 

"Yes, sir, the only buildin' in the toon o' Bath that 
ain't got no sides, but just front and back," and he lapsed 
again into his vacant, idle laughter. Evidently he had 
been given over to the task of making sport, or trying to, 
out of the merest trifles for so many years that he had 
lost all sense of proportion and value. The least thing, 
where there was so little to be gay over, took on exag- 
gerated lines of the comic. He was full of unconsicous 
burlesque. Suddenly he added with a touch of serious- 
ness, "and they say that the front is goin' to cost seven- 
teen thousand dollars. Jee-hosaphat !" He hung onto 
the "Jee" with breathless persistence. It was really evi- 
dent in this case that seventeen thousand dollars repre- 
sented an immense sum to his mind. 

It was pathetic to see him sitting there in his faded, 
almost ragged clothes, and all these other old lonely sol- 
diers about. I began to feel the undertow of this clanking 
farce called life. What a boneyard old age seems, any- 
how! 

There was another old soldier, tall, heavy, oleaginous, 
with some kind of hip trouble, who explained that he 
lived in Brooklyn up to the year previous, and had 
been with Grant before Richmond and in the battle 
in the Wilderness. These endless, ancient tales seemed 
a little pale just now beside the heav^y storms of battle 
raging in Europe. And I could not help thinking how 
utterly indifferent life is to the individual. How trivial, 
and useless and pointless we become in age ! What's the 
good of all the clatter and pathos and fuss about war 



CHICKEN AND WAFFLES 139 

to these ancients? How does patriotism and newspaper 
bluster and the fighting of other men's battles avail them, 
now they are old? Here they were, stranded, wrecked, 
forgotten. Who cares, really, what becomes of them? 
Fifty years ago they were fawned upon for the moment 
as the saviors of their country. And now they hobble 
about such squares as this, condemned by the smug gentry 
of small towns, despised for indulging in the one salve 
to disillusioned minds and meditating on things that are 
no more. I wanted to leave, and we soon did leave, 
anxious to feel the soothing waves of change. 

Although in Bath the sun seemed suddenly overcast 
by these reflections in regard to the remorseless tread of 
time, outside, in the open fields, it was as inspiriting as 
ever. A few miles out and we came to the banks of a 
small river which flowed for a number of miles through 
this region, tumbling thinly over rough boulders, or form- 
ing itself into deep, grey-green pools. Gone were the an- 
cient soldiers in blue, the miseries of a hag like "the Pete 
and Duck." Just here the hills seemed to recede, and 
the land was very flat, like a Dutch landscape. We came 
to a section of the stream where it was sheltered by 
groves of trees which came to its very edge, and by 
small thickets of scrub willow. Just below a little way, 
some girls, one of them in a red jacket, were fishing. A 
little farther a few Holstein cows were standing in the 
water, knee deep. It looked so inviting that I began to 
urge that we all take a swim. A lovely bank coming 
into view, and an iron bridge above, which was a poem 
among trees, Franklin was inspired. "That looks rather 
inviting," he said. 

As usual. Speed had something to do — heaven only 
knows what — polishing some bolts, probably. But 
Franklin and I struck out through waving patterns of 
ox-eye daisies and goldenrod to the drab and pea green 
willow groves, where, amid rank growths of weeds and 
whitish pebbles and stones, we presently reached the 
water's edge and a little hillock of grass at the foot of a 
tree. Here on bushes and twigs we hung our clothes and 



140 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

went out into the bright, tumbling waters. The current 
was very swift, though very shallow — no deeper than 
just above the knees. By clearing away the stones and 
lying down on the pebbles and sand underneath, you 
could have the water race over you at breakneck, speed, 
and feel as though you were being fingered by mystic 
hands. It was about all we could do, lying thus, to brace 
ourselves so that the stream would not keep moving 
us on. 

The sky, between the walls of green wood, was espe- 
cially blue. The great stones about us were all slippery 
with a thin, green moss, and yet so clean and pretty, and 
the water gurgled and sipped. Lying on my back I 
could see robins and bluejays and catbirds in the trees 
about. I amused myself kicking my feet in the air and 
throwing stones at the farther bank and watching Frank- 
lin's antics. He had a strong, lean white body, which 
showed that it had been shaped in hayfields in his youth. 
His white hair and straight nose made him look some- 
what like an ancient Etruscan, stalking about in the waters. 
We were undisturbed by any sound, and I could have 
spent the rest of the day lying in this babbling current — 
it was so warm — listening to the birds, watching the wind 
shake the leaves, and contemplating the blue sky. It 
was so warm that when one sat up the wind and sun 
soon dried the flesh. I was loath to leave. 




7, 

O 

o 

H 

X 

s- 



CHAPTER XVIII 

MR. HUBBARD AND AN AUTOMOBILE FLIRTATION 

AvoCA, just beyond here, was a pleasant little town, 
with a white church steeple drowsing in the afternoon 
sun. We tried to get something to eat and couldn't — 
or rather could only obtain sandwiches, curse them! — 
and ham sandwiches at that. My God, how I do hate 
ham sandwiches when I am hungry enough to want a 
decent meal ! And a place called Arkport was not bet- 
ter, though we did get some bananas there — eight — and 
I believe I ate them all. I forget, but I think. I did. 
Franklin confined himself almost exclusively to popcorn 
and candy ! 

At Avoca we learned of two things which altered our 
course considerably. 

First, in leisurely dressing after our bath, Franklin 
began browsing over a map to see where we were and 
what the name of this stream was, when suddenly his 
eye lighted on the magic name of East Aurora. (Imag- 
ine a town named East Aurora!) Here had lived until 
recently (when the Lusitania went down he and his wife 
were drowned) a certain Elbert Hubbard, author, pub- 
lisher, lecturer, editor, manufacturer of "art" furniture 
and articles of virtu, whose personal characteristics and 
views seemed to have aroused more feverish interest in 
the minds of a certain type of American than almost any 
other man's, unless, perchance, it might have been Wil- 
liam Jennings Bryan's, or Billy Sunday's. 

In my youth, when he was first writing his interest- 
ing "Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and 
Great" (think of that for a title!), I thought him won- 
derful too. I never heard of his stirring those hard, 
sophisticated, unregerenate sanctums and halls of the 

141 



142 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

great cities where lurk the shrewd, the sharp and evil, 
to say nothing of the dullest of the dull; but when it came 
to the rural places, there he shone. In the realms of the 
vast and far flung Chautauqua, with its halls and shrines 
of homage, he was au fail, a real prophet. Here he was 
looked up to, admired, adored. These people bought 
his furniture and read his books, and in the entertainment 
halls of public schools, clubs, societies, circles for the 
promotion of this, that, or the other, they quoted his 
thoughts. Personally, I early outgrew Mr. Hubbard. 
He appealed to me for about four months, in my twenty- 
fourth or twentyfifth year, and then he was gone again. 
Later on his Roycroft furniture, book bindings, lamps 
and the like came to have a savage distaste to me. They 
seemed impossible, tlie height of the inane; but he went 
on opening salesrooms in New York, Chicago and else- 
where, and increasing his fame. He came to be little 
more than a shabby charlatan, like so many of those other 
itinerant evangelists that infest America. 

This great man had established himself years before, 
in this place called East Aurora, near Buffalo, and 
there had erected what I always imagined were extensive 
factories or studios, or mere rooms for the manufacture 
and storage and sale of all the many products of art on 
which he put the stamp of his approval. Here were 
printed all those rare and wonderful books in limp 
leather and handstitched silk linings and a host of artis- 
tic blank flyleaves, which always sickened me a little 
when I looked at them. Here were sawed and planed 
and hand polished, no doubt, all the perfect woods that 
went into his Roycroft furniture. Here were hammered 
and polished and carefully shaped the various metals that 
went into his objects of art. I always felt that really it 
must be a remarkable institution, though I cared no whit 
for the books or furniture or objects of art. They were 
too fixy. 

In all his writings he was the preacher of the severe, 
the simple, the durable — that stern beauty that has its 
birth in necessity, its continuance in use. With all such 



AN AUTOMOBILE FLIRTATION 143 

products, as he himself was forever indicating, art was 
a by-product, — a natural outcome of the perfection im- 
pulse of the life principle. Somewhere in all nature was 
something which wanted and sought beauty, the clear, 
strong, natural beauty of strength and necessity. Who 
shaped the tiger? Who gave perfection to the Hon? 
Behold the tree. See the hill. Were they not beautiful, 
and did they not conform to the laws of necessity and 
conditional use? Verily, verily. 

Whenever I looked at any of his books or objects of 
art or furniture, while they had that massiveness or 
durability or solidity which should be in anything built 
for wear and severe use, they had something else which 
did not seem to suggest these needs at all. There was 
a luxuriousness of polish and ornamentation and inutile 
excrescence about them which irritated me greatly. 
"Here is a struggle," I said to myself, "to mix together 
two things which can never mix — oil and water, — luxury 
and extreme, rugged durability." It was as if one took 
Abraham Lincoln and dressed him in the drawingroom 
clothes of a fop, curling his hair, perfuming his beard, 
encasing his feet in patent leather shoes, and then said, 
"Gentlemen, behold the perfect man." 

Well, behold him! 

And so it was with this furniture and these art objects. 
They were log cabin necessities decked out in all the 
gimcrackery of the Petit Trianon. They weren't log- 
cabin necessities any more, and they certainly bore no 
close relationship to the perfection of a Heppelwhite or 
a Sheraton, or the convincing charms of the great periods. 
They were just a combination of country and city, as 
their inventor understood them, without having the real 
merit of either, and to me they seemed to groan of their 
unhappy union. It was as if a man had taken all the 
worst and best in American life and fastened them to- 
gether without really fusing them. It was a false idea. 
The author of them was an artistic clown. 

But when it came to the possibility of seeing his place 
I was interested enough. Only a few weeks before the 



144 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

country had been ringing with the news of his death and 
the tragedy of it. Long, appreciative editorials had ap- 
peared in all our American papers (on what subjects 
will not the American papers write long, appreciative 
editorials!). So I was interested, as was Franlclin. He 
suggested going to East Eurora, and I was pleased to 
note that if we went there we would have to go through 
Warsaw, New York. That settled it. I agreed at once. 

Another thing that we discussed at Avoca was that 
if we took the best road from there and followed it to 
Portageville, we would be in the immediate vicinity of 
the Falls of the Geneseo, "and they're as fine as anything 
I ever see in America," was the way one countryman put 
it. "I've seen Niagara and them falls down there on 
the Big Kanawha in West Virginia, but I never expect to 
see anything finer than these." It was the village black- 
smith and garage owner of Avoca who was talking. And 
Portageville was right on the road to Warsaw and East 
Aurora. 

We were off in a trice — ham sandwiches in hand. 

It was while we were speeding out of Arkport and on 
our way to Canaseraga and the Falls of the Geneseo that 
I had my first taste of what might be called an automo- 
bile flirtation. It was just after leaving Arkport and 
while we were headed for a town called Canaseraga that 
we caught up with and passed three maids in a machine 
somewhat larger than our own, who were being piloted 
at a very swift pace by a young chauffeur. It is a rule 
of the road and a state law in most states that unless a 
machine wishes to keep the lead by driving at the per- 
mitted speed it must turn to the right to permit any 
machine approaching from the rear and signaling to pass. 

Most chauffeurs and all passengers I am sure resent 
doing this. It is a cruel thing to have to admit that any 
machine can go faster than yours or that you are in the 
mood to take the dust of anyone. Still if a machine is 
trailing you and making a great row for you to give way, 
what can you do, unless you seek open conflict and pos- 
sibly disaster — a wreck — for chauffeurs and owners are 



AN AUTOMOBILE FLIRTATION 145 

occasionally choleric souls and like to pay out stubborn, 
greedy "road hogs," even if in paying them out you come 
to grief yourself. Franklin had just finished a legal 
argument of this kind some few weeks before, he told us, 
in which some man who would not give the road and 
had been "sideswiped" by his car (Franklin being absent 
and his chauffeur who was out riding choleric) had been 
threatening to bring suit for physical as well as material 
injury. It was this threat to sue for physical injuries 
which brought about a compromise in Franklin's favor, 
for it is against the law to threaten anyone, particularly 
by mail, as in this instance; and so Franklin, by threat- 
ening in return, was able to escape. 

Be that as it may, these three maids, or their chauf- 
feur, when we first came up refused to give the road, 
although they did increase their speed in an effort to 
keep it. One of them, a gay creature in a pink hat, 
looked back and half smiled at our discomfiture. I took 
no more interest in her than did any of the others appar- 
ently, at the time, for in a situation of this kind how is 
one to tell which is the favored one? 

As an able chauffeur, the master of a good machine, 
and the ex-leader of the Lincoln Highway procession for 
a certain distance, how was a man like Speed to take a 
rebuff like this? Why, as all good and true chauffeurs 
should, by increasing his own speed and trailing them so 
close and making such a row that they would have to 
give way. This he did and so for a distance of three 
or four miles we were traveling in a cloud of dirt and 
emitting a perfect uproar of squawks. In consequence 
we finally were permitted to pass, not without certain 
unkind and even contemptuous looks flung in our direc- 
tion, as who should say: "You think yourselves very 
smart, don't you?" — although in the case of the maiden 
in the pink hat it did not seem to me that her rage was 
very great. She was too amused and cheerful. I sat 
serene and calm, viewing the surrounding landscape, only 
il could not help noting that the young ladies were quite 
attractive and that the one in the pink hat was interested 



146 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

in someone in our car — Speed or Franklin, I decided — 
preferably Franklin, since he looked so very smart in 
his carefully cut clothes. I did not think it could be 
myself. As for Speed, mustachios up and a cigarette 
between his teeth, he looked far too handsome to con- 
descend to flirt with a mere country — heiress, say. These 
chauffeurs — you know! But a little later, as we were 
careening along, having attained a good lead as we 
thought and taking our ease, what should come trailing 
up behind us but this same car, making a great clatter, 
and because of a peculiar wide width of road and our 
loitering mood, passing us before we could say "Jack 
Robinson." Again the maid in the pink hat smiled — it 
seemed to me — but at whom? And again Speed bustled 
to the task of overtaking them. I began to sit up and 
take notice. 

What a chase! There was a big, frail iron bridge 
over a rocky, shallow stream somewhere, which carried 
a sign reading: "Bridge weak, walk your horses. Speed 
limit four miles an hour." I think we crossed it in one 
bound. There was a hollow where the road turned 
sharply under a picturesque cliff and a house in a green 
field seemed to possess especial beauty because of a grove 
of pines. At another time I would have liked to linger 
here. A sign read: "Danger ahead. Sharp Curve. Go 
Slow." We went about it as if we were being pursued 
by the devil himself. Then came a rough place of stone 
somewhere, where ordinarily Speed would have slowed 
down and announced that he would "like to have a picture 
of this road." Do you think we slowed down this time? 
Not much. We went over it as if it were as smooth 
as glass. I was nearly jounced out of the car. 

Still we did not catch up, quite. The ladies or the 
chauffeur or all were agreed apparently to best us, but 
we trailed them close and they kept looking back and 
laughing at us. The pink-hatted one was all dimples. 

"There you are, Mr. Dreiser," called Speed. "She's 
decided which one she wants. She doesn't seem to see 
any of the rest of us." 



AN AUTOMOBILE FLIRTATION 147 

Speed could be horribly flattering at times. 

"No," I said, "without a mustache or a cigarette or 
a long Napoleonic lock over my brow, never. It's Frank- 
lin here." 

Franklin smiled — as Julius Cassar might have smiled. 

"Which one is it you're talking about?" he inquired 
innocently. 

"Which one? — you sharp!" I scoffed. "Don't come 
the innocent, guileless soul on me. You know whom 
she's looking at. The rest of us haven't a chance." 

Inwardly I was wondering whether by any chance 
freak of fancy she could have taken a tentative interest 
in me. While there is life — you know! 

Alas, they beat us and for awhile actually disappeared 
because of a too rough stretch at one point and then, 
as I had given up all hope of seeing them any more, there 
they were, just a little ahead of us, in the midst of a 
most beatific landscape; and they were loitering — yes, 
they were! — people can loiter, even in motors. 

My mind was full of all the possibilities of a gay, 
cheerful flirtation. Whose wouldn't be, on a summery 
evening like this, with a car full of girls and one bolder 
and prettier than the others, smiling back at you. The 
whole atmosphere was one of romance. It was after 
four now, with that rather restful holiday feeling that 
comes into the air of a Saturday afternoon when every 
laborer and rich man is deciding to knock off for the day 
and "call it a day," as they express it, and you are won- 
dering why there is any need to hurry over anything. 
The sky was so blue, the sun so warm. If you had been 
there you would have voted to sit on the grass of one 
of these lovely slopes and talk things over. I am sure 
you would. 

Alas, for some distance now we had been encounter- 
ing signs indicating that a place called Hornell was near 
and not on our route. It was off to the left or south 
and we were headed north, Canaseraga-ward. If our 
car turned north at the critical juncture of the dividing 
roads, would they miss us If we did not follow them 



148 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

and turn back, or was it not our duty to get the lead 
and show them which way we were going, or failing that, 
follow them into Hornell for a bit of food or some- 
thing? I began to puzzle. 

"How about Hornell, for dinner?" I suggested mildly. 
"I see that these signs indicate a place of about ten 
thousand." 

"What's got into you?" exclaimed my host. "Didn't 
you just eat eight bananas?" 

"Oh, I know; but bananas, in this air " 

"But it isn't any more than four thirty. It would 
only be five by the time we got there. I thought you 
wanted to see the falls yet tonight — and Warsaw?" 

"I did — only — you know how beautiful falls are likely 
to be in the morning " 

"Oh, of course, I see — only — but, seriously, do you 
think we'd better? It might turn out all right, but again, 
there are three of them, and two of them are not very 
good looking and we're only two actually." 

"Right ! Right !" I sighed. "Well, if it must be " 

I sank heavily against the cushion. 

And then they did let us pass them, not far from the 
fatal juncture. Just as we neared it they decided to 
pass us and turned off toward Hornell. 

"Oh, heaven! heaven! Oh, woe I woe!" I sighed. 
"And she's looking back. How can such things be?" 

Speed saw the point as quickly as anyone. Our bet- 
ter judgment would naturally have asserted itself any- 
how, I presume. 

"We turn to the right here, don't we?" he called chip- 
perly, as we neared the signpost. 

"Of course, of course," I called gaily. "Don't we, 
Franklin?" 

"Yes, that's the way," he smiled, and off we went, 
northwest, while they were going southwest. 

I began to wonder then whether they would have 
sense enough to turn back and follow us, but they didn't. 

"And it is such a lovely afternoon," I said to my- 
self. "I'd like to see Hornell." 



AN AUTOMOBILE FLIRTATION 149 

"That was a good little car they had," called back 
Speed consolingly. "That girl in the pink hat certainly 
had a fancy for someone here." 

"Not me," said Franklin. "I know that." 
"Not me," I replied. "She never looked at me." 
"Well, I know damn well she never looked at me," 
added Speed. "She must have liked the car." 
We both laughed. _ 
I wonder what sort of place Hornell is, anyhow? 



5 



CHAPTER XIX 

THE REV. J. CADDEN MCMICKENS 

The last twelve miles of the run into Portagevllle had 
seemed if anything the most perfect of all. Before we 
reached Canaseraga we traversed a number of miles of 
dirt road — "one of the finest dirt roads anywhere," a 
local enthusiast described it, — and it was excellent, very 
much above the average. After Canaseraga it continued 
for twelve miles, right into Portageville and the Falls, 
and even on to Warsaw and East Aurora, some forty 
miles farther, as we found out later. Following it we 
skirted a hillside with a fine valley below it, and few, if 
any, houses to evidence the thriving farm life which the 
fields seemed to suggest. Evening gnats were whirling 
everywhere. Breaths of cool air were beginning to ema- 
nate from the grove of woods which we occasionally 
passed. The long rays of the sun slanted so heavily that 
they came under my visor and found my eyes. A fine 
vigorous type of farm boy swinging along with an axe 
over his shoulder, and beads of perspiration on his brow, 
informed us that we were on the right road. I envied 
him his pink cheeks and his lithe body and his clear blue 
eyes. 

But the Falls, when we found them, were not quite 
all that I expected. Three Falls — an upper, a lower and 
a middle — were all included in a park called "Letch- 
worth," but it did not seem to me that much parking had 
been accomplished. A great house near them at the spot 
where a railroad crosses on a high trestle, deceived us 
into thinking that we had found a delightful hotel for 
the night; but no, it was an institution of some kind. 
Deep down in a valley below the Falls we found Port- 
ageville, a small, crossroads place that looked for all the 

150 



REV. J. CADDEN McMICKENS 151 

world like one of those cowboy towns one sees so per- 
sistently displayed in the moving pictures. There were 
two or three frame hotels of drab or green shades, facing 
a large open square, and a collection of small white frame 
houses, with a host of rather primitive looking Americans 
sitting outside the hotels in rocking or arm chairs, the 
men in their shirt sleeves. Franklin, who is precise in 
his apparel, was rather irritated, I think. He was not 
expecting anything quite so crude. We inquired as to 
rooms and meals and found that we could have both, only 
the evening meal should be eaten very soon, if we wanted 
any. The hour for it was from six to seven, with no a la 
carte service. 

The individual who volunteered this information was 
a little, short, stout man in belted trousers and shirt 
sleeves who stood beside the car as it lay alongside the 
hotel platform, picking his teeth with a toothpick. He 
was so blandly unconscious of the fact that the process 
might be a little annoying that he was amusing. I got the 
feeling that things would not be so comfortable here as 
they might be, and so I was glad when Franklin suggested 
that we seek a more perfect view of the Falls, which 
someone had said was to be obtained from below the 
Falls. It would take only ten or fifteen minutes, so the 
proprietor suggested, — straight up the road we were on 
— so we went on seeking it. We did not return. 

In the first place, we could not find the view indicated, 
and in the second place, we encountered a man who 
wanted to ride and who told such a queer story of being 
robbed of his bicycle while assisting another man to repair 
his machine, that we began to suspect he was a little crazy 
or that he had some scheme in mind of robbing us, — just 
which we could not determine. But in parleying with him 
and baffling him by suggesting we were going back into 
the village instead of the way he thought we were going, 
we lost so much time that it was night, and we did not 
think we would get a decent meal if we did return. So 
we questioned another stranger as to the route to War- 



152 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

saw, found that it was only twenty miles, and struck out 
for it. 

Over a road that was singularly smooth for a dirt 
one, and through land as flat as Illinois, a tableland on 
the top of a ridge, — which proved the last we were to 
see — we raced Warsaw-ward. It was strangely like my 
school days home, or I romanticised myself into the be- 
lief that it was. It was the same size as Warsaw, In- 
diana, when I left it — thirtyfive hundred — and its prin- 
cipal east and west street, as I discovered the next morn- 
ing, was named Buffalo, as at home. It differed in one 
respect greatly, and that was that it had no courthouse 
square, and no lakes immediately adjoining it; but other- 
wise Its general atmosphere was quite the same. It had a 
river, or small stream about the size of the Tippecanoe. 
The similarity is not so startling when one considers how 
many towns of thirtyfive hundred are county seats in the 
middle west, and how limited their opportunities for dif- 
ference are. Assemble four or five hundred frame and 
brick houses of slightly varying size and architecture and 
roominess, surround them with trees and pleasing grass 
plots, provide the town a main street and one cross street 
of stores, place one or two red brick school houses at 
varying points In them, add one white sandstone court- 
house In a public square, and a railroad station, and four 
or five or six red brick churches, and there you have them 
all. Give one town a lake, another a stream, another a 
mill pond — it makes little difference. 

And actually, as we dashed along toward Warsaw un- 
der a starry sky, with a warm, summery wind blowing, 
a wind so warm that it felt suspiciously like rain, I allowed 
myself to sink into the most commemorative state. When 
you forget the now and go back a number of years and 
change yourself Into a boy and view old scenes and see 
old faces, what an unbelievably strange and inexplicable 
thing life becomes! We attempt solutions of this thing, 
but to me it is the most vacuous of all employments. I 
rather prefer to take it as a strange, unbelievable, impos- 
sible orchestral blending of sounds and scenes and moods 



REV. J. CADDEN McMICKENS 153 

and odors and sensations, which have no real meaning 
and yet which, tinkling and kaleidoscopic as they are, 
are important for that reason. I never ride this way at 
night, or when I am tired by day or night, but that life 
becomes tliis uncanny blur of nothingness. 

Why should something want to produce two billion 
people all alike, — ears, eyes, noses, hands, unless for 
mere sensory purposes, — to sensitize fully and voluptu- 
ously something that is delicious? Why billions of trees, 
flowers, insects, animals, all seeking to feel, unless feel- 
ing without socalled reason is the point? Why reason, 
anyway? And to what end? Supposing, for instance, 
that one could reason through to the socalled solution, 
actually found It, and then had to live with that bit of 
exact knowledge and no more forever and ever and ever I 
Give me, instead, sound and fury, signifying nothing. 
Give me the song sung by an idiot, dancing down the wind. 
Give me this gay, sad, mad seeking and never finding 
about which we are all so feverishly employed. It is so 
perfect, this inexplicable mystery. 

And it was with some such thoughts as these that I 
was employed, sitting back in the car and spinning along 
over these roads this night. I was only half awake and 
half in a dreamland of my own creating. The houses 
that we passed with open doors, lamp on table, people 
reading, girls playing at pianos, people sitting in door- 
steps, were in the world of twentyfive or thirty years be- 
fore, and I was entering the Warsaw of my school days. 
There was no real difference. "What ideas have we 
today that we did not have then?" I was dreamily asking 
myself. "How do people differ? Are the houses any 
better, or the clothes? Or the people in their bodies and 
minds? Or are their emotions any richer or keener or 
sweeter?" Euripides wrote the Medea in 440 B. C. 
Shakespeare wrote "Macbeth" in 1605 A. D. "The 
Song of Songs" — how old is that? Or the Iliad? The 
general feeling is that we are getting on, but I should like 
to know what we can get on to, actually. And beyond 
the delight of sensory response, what is there to get on 



154 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

to? Mechanicalizing the world does not, cannot, it seems 
to me, add to the individual's capacity for sensory re- 
sponse. Life has always been vastly varied. How, by 
inventing things, can we make it more so? As a matter 
of fact, life, not man, is supplying its own inventions and 
changes, adding some, discarding others. To what end? 
Today we have the automobile. Three thousand years 
ago we had the chariot. Today we fight with forty- 
centimeter guns and destructive gases. Three thousand 
years ago we fought with catapults and burning pitch and 
oil. Man uses all the forces he can conceive, and he 
seems to be able to conceive of greater and greater forces, 
but he does not understand them, and his individual share 
in the race's sensory response to them is apparently no 
greater than ever. We are capable of feeling so much 
and no more. Has any writer, for instance, felt more 
poignantly or more sweetly than those whose moods and 
woes are now the Iliad? And when Medea speaks, can 
anyone say it is ancient and therefore less than we can 
feel today? We know that this is not true. 

I may seem to grow dim in my researches, but I can 
conceive of no least suggestion of real change in the 
sensory capacity of life. As it was in the beginning, so 
it appears that it is now — and shall I say, ever shall be? 
I will not venture that. I am not all-wise and I do not 
know. 

When we entered Warsaw I had just such thoughts 
in my mind, and a feeling that I would like very much 
to have something to eat. Since it was early Sat- 
urday evening, the streets were crowded with country 
vehicles, many automobiles, and a larger percentage of 
tumble-down buggies and wagons than I had so far seen 
elsewhere. Why? The oldest, poorest, most ratty and 
rickety looking auto I had seen in I don't know when 
was labeled "For Hire." 

"Gee whiz!" exclaimed Speed when he caught sight 
of it. And I added, "Who would want to ride in thrfft, 
anyhow?" 



REV. J. CADDEN McMICKENS 155 

Yet, since it was tliere, it would seem as if somebody 
might want to do so. 

However, at the north end of the principal street, and 
close to a small park, we discovered one of the most com- 
fortable little hotels imaginable. All the rooms were 
done in bright, cheerful colors, and seemed to be properly 
cared for. There were baths and an abundance of hot 
water and towels, and electric lights and electric call 
bells, — rather novel features for a country hotel of this 
size. The lobby was as smart and brisk as most hotels 
of a much more expensive character. We "spruced up" 
considerably at the sight of it. Franklin proceeded with 
his toilet in a most ambitious manner, whereupon I 
changed to a better suit. I felt quite as though I were 
dressing for an adventure of some kind, though I did not 
think there was the slightest likelihood of our finding one 
in a town of this size, nor was I eager for the prospect. 
A half dozen years before — perhaps earlier — I would 
have been most anxious to get into conversation with 
some girl and play the gallant as best I could, or roam 
the dark in search of adventure, but tonight I was in- 
terested in no such thing, even if I might have. 

Surely I must be getting along in years, I said to my- 
self, to be thus indifferent to these early enthusiasms. 
Twenty years before, if anyone had told me that I could 
go forth into a brisk Saturday evening crowd such as 
was filling this one street, and, seeing the young girls 
and boys and women and men going about, feel no least 
thrill of possible encounters, I would have said that life, 
under such circumstances, would not be worth living. 
Yet here I was, and here we were, and this was exactly 
what I was doing and life seemed fairly attractive. 

Out in the buzzing country street we did nothing but 
stroll about, buy picture postcards, write on and address 
them, buy some camera films, get our shoes shined, and 
finally go for our dinner to a commonplace country 
restaurant. I was interested in the zealous, cadaverous, 
overambitious young man who was the proprietor, and 
a young, plump blonde girl acting as waitress, who might 



156 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

have been his wife or only a hired girl. Her eyes looked 
swollen and as though she had been crying recently. And 
he was in a crotchety, non-palliative mood, taking our 
orders in a superior, contemptuous manner, and making 
us feel as though we were of small import. 

"What ails mine host, do you suppose?" I asked of 
Franklin. 

"Oh, he thinks that we think we're something, I sup- 
pose, and he's going to prove to us that we're not. You 
know how country people are." 

I watched him thereafter, and I actually think Frank- 
lin's interpretation was correct. 

As we ambled about afterwards, Speed told us the har- 
rowing story of the descent of the Rev. J. Cadden Mc- 
Mickens on the fair city of Kokomo, Indiana, some few 
years before, when he was working there as a test man 
for one of the great automobile companies. After a 
reasonable period of religious excitement and exhorta- 
tion, in which the Rev. J. Cadden conducted a series of 
meetings in a public hall hired for the occasion and urged 
people to reform and repent of their sins, he suddenly 
announced that on a given day the end of the world would 
certainly take place and that all those not reformed or 
"saved" by that date would be damned. On the night 
before the fatal morning on which the earth was to be 
consumed by fire or water, or both. Speed suddenly awoke 
to the fact that he was not "saved" and that he could not 
get a train out of Kokomo to Carmel, Indiana, where his 
mother lived. To him at that time the world was surely 
coming to an end. Fire, brimstone, water, smoke, were 
already in the air. As he related this story to us I got 
the impression that his knees knocked under him. In 
consequence of the thought of never being able to see 
his dear mother any more, or his sister or brothers, he 
nearly succumbed of heart failure. Afterwards, finding 
that the earth was not destroyed and that he was as safe 
and sound as ever, he was seized by a great rage against 
the aforesaid Rev. J. Cadden McMickens, and went to 
seek him out in order that he might give him "a damned 



I 



REV. J. CADDEN McMICKENS 157 

good licking," as he expressed it, but the Rev. J. Cadden, 
having seen his immense prophecy come to nothing, had 
already fled. 

"But, Speed," I protested, "how comes it that you, a 
sensible young fellow, capable of being a test man for 
a great automobile factory like that of the H Com- 
pany, could be taken in by such fol de rol? Didn't you 
know that the earth was not likely to be consumed all 
of a sudden by fire or water? Didn't you ever study 
geology or astronomy or anything like that?" 

"No, I never," he replied, with the only true and per- 
fect Hoosier response to such a query. "I never had a 
chance to go to school much. I had to go to work when 
I was twelve." 

"Yes, I know. Speed," I replied sympathetically, "but 
you read the newspapers right along, don't you? They 
rather show that such things are not likely to happen — 
in a general way they do." 

"Yes, I know," he replied, "but I was just a kid then. 
That doggone skunk! I'd just like to have a picture of 
him, I would, frightening me like that." 

"But, Speed," I said, "surely you didn't believe that 
the earth was going to be swallowed by fire that next 
morning after you were so frightened?" 

"Yes, I did, too," he replied. "He was just agettin' 
out papers and handbills with great big type, and hol- 
lerin' there on the corner. It was enough to scare any- 
body. Why wouldn't I? Just the same, I wasn't the 
only one. There were hundreds — mostly everybody in 
Kokomo. I went over to see an old lady I knew, and she 
said she didn't know if it would happen or not — she 
wasn't sure." 

"You poor kid," I mumbled. 

"Well, what did you do. Speed, when you found you 
couldn't get out of town?" inquired Franklin. "Why 
didn't you walk out?" 

"Yes, walk out," replied Speed resentfully. "I have 
a picture of myself walking out, and Carmel forty miles 



158 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

away or more. I wanted to be with my mother when the 
earth burned up." 

"And you couldn't make it by morning," I commented. 

"No, I couldn't," he replied. 

"Well, then, what did you do?" persisted Franklin. 

"Well, I went to see this old lady where I boarded 
once, and I just stayed with her. We sat and waited to- 
gether." 

At this point I was troubled between a desire to laugh 
and to weep. This poor youth ! And the wild-eyed J. 
Cadden McMickenj ! And Kokomo ! And the hun- 
dreds who believed! Can't you see Speed and the old 
lady — the young boy and the woman who didn't know 
and couldn't be sure, and Kokomo, and the Rev. J. Cad- 
den McMic 

I feel as if I would like to get hold of the Rev. J. 
Cadden even at this late date and shake him up a bit. I 
won't say kick him, but — ^^ 



CHAPTER XX 

THE CAPITAL OF THE FRA 

Next morning it was raining, and to pass the time be- 
fore breakfast I examined a large packet of photographs 
which Speed had left with me the night before — memen- 
toes of that celebrated pioneer venture which had for 
its object the laying out of the new Lincoln Highway from 
New York to San Francisco. We had already en route 
heard so much of this trip that by now we were fairly 
familiar with it. It had been organized by a very wealthy 
manufacturer, and he and his very good looking young 
wife had been inclined to make a friend of Speed, so that 
he saw much that would not ordinarily have fallen under 
his vision. I was never tired of hearing of this particular 
female, whom I would like to have met. Speed described 
her as small, plump, rosy and very determined, — an iron- 
willed, spiteful, jealous little creature — in other words, 
a real woman, who had inherited more money than her 
husband had ever made. Whenever anything displeased 
her greatly she would sit in the car and weep, or even 
yell. She refused to stay at any hotel which did not 
just suit her and had once in a Chicago hotel diningroom 
slapped the face of her spouse because he dared to con- 
tradict her, and another time In some famous Kansas 
City hostelry she had thrown the bread at him. Both 
were always anxious to meet only the best people, only 
Mr. Manufacturer would insist upon including prize- 
fighters and auto-speed record men, greatly to her dis- 
pleasure. 

I wish you might have seen these pictures selected by 
Speed to illustrate his trip. Crossing a great country like 
America, from coast to coast, visiting new towns each 
day and going by a route hitherto not much followed, 

159 



i6o A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

one might gather much interesting information and many 
pictures (if no more than postcards) of beautiful and 
striicing things. 

Do you imagine there were any in this collection which 
Speed left with me? Not one! The views, if you will 
believe me, were all of mired cars and rutty roads and 
great valleys which might have been attractive or impres- 
sive if they had been properly photographed. The car 
was always in the foreground, spoiling everything. He 
had selected dull scenes of cars in procession — the same 
cars always in the same procession, only in different order, 
and never before any radically different scene. 

As a matter of fact, as I looked at these photographs 
I could tell exactly how Speed's mind worked, and it was 
about the way the average mind would work under such 
circumstances. Here was a great automobile tour, In- 
cluding say forty or fifty cars or more. The cars con- 
tained important men and women, or were supposed to, 
because the owners had money. Ergo, the cars and their 
occupants were the great things about this trip, and wher- 
ever the cars were, there was the interest — never else- 
where. Hence, whenever the cars rolled Into a town or 
along a great valley or near a great mountain, let the 
town be never so Interesting, or the mountain, or the 
valley, the great thing to photograph was the cars In the 
procession. It never seemed to occur to the various 
photographers to do anything different. Cars, cars, cars, 
— here they were, and always in a row and always the 
same. I finally put the whole bunch aside wearily and 
gave them back to him, letting him think that they were 
very, very remarkable — which they were. 

Setting off after breakfast we encountered not the 
striking mountain effects of the region about Delaware 
Water Gap and Stroudsburg, nor yet the fine valley views 
along the Susquehanna, but a spent hill country — the last 
receding heaves and waves of all that mountainous coun- 
try east of us. As we climbed up and up out of Warsaw 
onto a ridge which seemed to command all the country 
about for miles, I thought of the words of that motor- 



THE CAPITAL OF THE FRA i6i 

cyclist at Owego who said he had come through Warsaw 
and that you climbed five hills to get in, but only one to 
get out, going east. It was true. In our westward course 
the hills we were to climb were before us. You could see 
two or three of them — the road ascending straight like 
a ribbon, ending suddenly at the top of each one and 
jumping as a thin whitish line to the next hill crest 
beyond. 

The rain in which we began our day was already ceas- 
ing, so that only a few miles out we could put down the 
top. Presently the sun began to break through fleecy, 
whitish clouds, giving the whole world an opalescent 
tinge, and then later, as we neared East Aurora, it be- 
came as brilliant as any sun lover could wish. 

A Sabbath stillness was in the air. One could actually 
feel the early morning preparations for church. As we 
passed various farmyards, the crowing of roosters and 
the barking of dogs seemed especially loud. Seeing a 
hen cross the road and only escape being struck by the 
car by a hair's breath, Franklin announced that he had 
solved the mystery of why hens invariably cross the road, 
or seem to, in front of any swift moving vehicle. 

"You don't mean to tell me that it's because they want 
to get to the other side, do you?" I inquired, thereby 
frustrating the possibility of the regulation Joe Miller. 

"Actually, yes, but I'm not trying to put that old one 
^over on you. It's because they always have the instinct, 
when any dangerous object approaches, to run toward 
their home — their coop, which is often just opposite 
where they are eating. Now you watch these chickens 
from now on. They'll be picking peacefully on the side 
of the road opposite the farmyard. Our car will come 
along, and instead of moving a few feet farther away 
from their home, and so escaping altogether, they will 
wait until the car is near and then suddenly decide to 
run for home — the longest way out of danger. Lots of 
times they'll start, as this last one did, and then find, 
when they're nearly half way over, that they can't 



i62 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

make it. Then they start to run ahead of the car and of 
course nearly always they're overtaken and killed." 

"Well, that's an ingenious explanation, anyhow," I 
said. 

"They lose their heads and then they lose their heads," 
he added. 

"Franklin!" I exclaimed reproachfully and then turn- 
ing to Speed added: "Don't let that make you nervous. 
Speed. Be calm. We must get him to East Aurora, 
even though he will do these trying things. Show that 
you are above such difficulties, Speed. Never let a mere 
attempt at humor, a beggarly jest, cause you to lose con- 
trol of the car." 

Speed never even smiled. 

Just here we stopped for gas and oil. We were un- 
expectedly entertained by a store clerk who seemed par- 
ticularly anxious to air his beliefs and his art knowedge. 
He was an interesting young man, very, with keen blue 
eyes, light hair, a sharp nose and chin — and decidedly in- 
telligent and shrewd. 

"How far is it to East Aurora from here?" inquired 
Franklin. 

"Oh, about fifteen miles," answered the youth. "You're 
not from around here, eh?" 

"No," said Franklin, without volunteering anything 
further. 

"Not bound for Elbert Hubbard's place, are you?" 

"We thought we'd take dinner there," replied Frank- 
lin. 

"I ask because usually a number of people go through 
here of a Sunday looking for his place, particularly now 
that he's dead. He's got quite an institution over there, 
I understand — or did have. They say his hotel is very 
good." 

"Haven't you ever been there?" I inquired, interested. 

"No, but I've heard a good deal about it. It's a sort 
of new art place, as I understand it, heavy furniture and 
big beams and copper and brass things. He had quite 
a trade, too. He got Into a bad way with some people 



THE CAPITAL OF THE FRA 163 

over there on account of his divorcing his first wife and 
taking up with this second woman for awhile without be- 
ing married to her. He was a pretty shrewd business 
man, I guess, even if he wore his hair long. I saw him 
once. He lectured around here — and everywhere else, 
I suppose. I think he was a little too radical for most 
people out this way." 

He looked as though he had vindicated his right to 
a seat among the intellectuals. 

I stared at him curiously. America is so brisk and 
well informed. Here was a small, out of the way place, 
with no railroad and only two or three stores, but this 
youth was plainly well informed on all the current topics. 
The few other youths and maids whom we saw here 
seemed equally brisk. I was surprised to note the Broad- 
way styles in suits and dresses — those little nuances of 
the ready made clothes manufacturers which make one 
feel as if there were no longer any country nor any city, 
but just smart, almost impudent life, everywhere. It was 
quite diverting. 

Looking at this fine country, dotted with red barns and 
silos and ripe with grain, in which already the reapers 
were standing in various places ready for the morrow's 
work, I could see how the mountains of the east were 
puffing out. This was a spent mountain country. All 
the real vigor of the hills was farther east. These were 
too rolling — too easy of ascent and descent — long and 
trying and difficult as some of them were. It seemed as 
if we just climbed and climbed and climbed only to de- 
scend, descend, descend, and then climb, climb, climb 
again. Speed put on the chains, — his favorite employ- 
I ment in hilly regions. 

But presently, after a few more hills, which finally 
gave way to a level country, we entered East Aurora. 

It is curious how any fame, even meretricious or vul- 

[■ gar, is likely to put one on the qui vive. I had never 

\ been greatly impressed with the intellect or the taste of 

1 Elbert Hubbard. He seemed too much the quack savior 

.and patent nostrum vender strayed into the realm of art. 



1 64 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

His face as photographed suggested the strolling Thes- 
pian of country "opera house" fame. I could never look 
upon his pictures without involuntarily smiling. 

Just the same, once here, I was anxious to see what 
he had achieved. Many people have I known who, after 
visiting East Aurora and the Roycroft (that name!) 
Shops, had commended its sacred precincts to my atten- 
tion. I have known poets who lived there and writers 
to whom he allotted cottages within the classic precincts 
of his farm because of their transcendent merits in litera- 
ture. Sic transit gloria vmndi! I cannot even recall 
their names! 

But here we were, rolling up the tree shaded streets of 
a handsome and obviously prosperous town of about 
twentyfive hundred which is now one of the residential 
suburbs of Buffalo. Our eyes were alert for any evidence 
of the whereabouts of the Roycroft Inn. Finally in the 
extreme western end of the city we found a Roycroft 
"sign" in front of a campus like yard containing a build- 
ing which looked like a small college "addition" of some 
kind — one of those small halls specially devoted to chem- 
istry or physics or literature. The whole place had the 
semi-academic socio-religious atmosphere which is asso- 
ciated by many with aspiration and intellectual suprem- 
acy and sweetness and light. Here on the sidewalk we 
encountered a youth who seemed to typify the happy 
acolyte or fanner of the sacred flame. His hair was a 
little long, his face and skin pale, quite waxen, and he 
wore a loose shirt with a blo\vy tie, his sleeves being 
rolled up and his negligee trousers belted at the waist. 
He had an open and amiable countenance and looked as 
though life had fortunately, but with rare discrimina- 
tion, revealed much to him. 

"What is this?" I inquired, waving my hand at the 
nearest building. 

"Oh, one of the shops," he replied pleasantly. 

"Is it open?" 

"Not on Sunday — not to the general public, no." 

He looked as though he thought we might gain special 



THE CAPITAL OF THE FRA 165 

permission possibly, if we sought it. But instead we in- 
quired the location of the Inn and he accompanied us 
thither on the running board of our machine. It turned 
out to be a low, almost rectangular affair done in pea 
green, with a fine line of veranda displaying swings, 
rockers, wicker chairs and deep benches where a number 
of passing visitors were already seated. It was a brisk, 
summery and rather conventional hotel scene. 

Within, just off the large lobby was a great music or 
reception hall, finished as I had anticipated in the Al- 
bertian vein of taste — a cross between a farm home and 
the Petit Trianon. The furniture was of a solid, log- 
cabin foundation but hopelessly bastardized with oil, 
glaze, varnish and little metal gimcracks in imitation of 
wooden pegs. A parqueted floor as slippery as glass, 
great timbers to support the ceiling which was as meticu- 
lously finished as a lorgnette, and a six-panel frieze of 
Athens, Rome, Paris, London and New York — done in 
a semi-impressionistic vein, and without real distinction, 
somehow — completed the effect. There were a choice 
array of those peculiar bindings for which the Roycroft 
shop is noted — limp leather, silk linings and wrought- 
bronze corners and clasps, and a number of odd lamps, 
bookracks, candelabra and the like, which were far from 
suggesting that rude durability which is the fine art of 
poverty. One cannot take a leaf out of St. Francis of 
Assisi, another out of the Grand Louis and a third out 
of Davy Crockett and combine them into a new art. The 
tTimg was bizarre, overloaded, souffle, a kind of tawdry 
botch. Through it all were tramping various American 
citizens of that hybrid, commercial-intellectual variety 
which always irritates me to the swearing stage. In the 
lobby, the library, and various halls was more of the same 
gimcrackery — Andrew Jackson attempting to masquerade 
as Lord Chesterfield, and not succeeding, of course. 
Franklin, a very tolerant and considerate person when it 
comes to human idiosyncrasies, was at first inclined to 
bestow a few mild words of praise. "After all, it did 



i66 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

help some people, you know. It was an advance in Its 
way." 

After a time, though, I noticed that his interest be- 
gan to flag. We were scheduled to stay for dinner, which 
was still three quarters of an hour away, and had regis- 
tered ourselves to that effect at the desk. In the mean- 
time the place was filling up with new arrivals who sug- 
gested that last word of social investiture which the own- 
ership of a factory may somehow imply. They would not 
qualify exactly as "high brow," but they did make an 
ordinary working artist seem a little de trop. As I 
watched them I kept thinking that here at last I had a 
very clear illustration in the flesh of a type that has al- 
ways been excessively offensive to me. It is the type which 
everywhere having attained money by processes which at 
times are too contemptible or too dull to mention, are, 
by reason of the same astonishing dullness of mind or im- 
pulse, attempting to do the thing which they think they 
ought to do. Think of how many you personally know. 
They have some hazy idea of a social standard to which 
they are trying to attain or "up to" which they are trying 
to live. Visit for example those ghastly gaucheries, the 
Hotels Astor or Knickerbocker in New York or those 
profitable Bohemian places in Greenwich village (how 
speedily any decent rendezvous is spoiled once the rumor 
of it gets abroad!) or any other presumably smart or 
different place and you will see for yourself. A hotel 
like the Astor or the Knickerbocker may be trying to be 
conventionally smart as the mob understands that sort 
of thing, the Bohemian places just the reverse. In either 
place or case these visitors will be found trying to live 
up to something which they do not understand and do 
not really approve of but which, nevertheless, they feel 
that they must do. 

In this East Aurora restaurant the dinner hour was 
one o'clock. That is the worst of these places outside the 
very large cities. They have a fixed time and a fixed 
way for nearly everything. I never could understand 
here or anywhere else why a crowd should be made to 



THE CAPITAL OF THE FRA 167 

wait and eat all at once. Where does that silly old mass 
rule come from anyhow? Why not let them enter and 
serve them as they come? The material is there as a rule 
to serve and waiting. But, no. They have a fixed dinner 
hour and neither love nor money will induce them to 
change it or open the doors one moment before the hour 
strikes. Then there is a rush, a pell-mell struggle I Think 
of the dullness, the reducing shame of it, really. The 
mere thought of it sickened me. I tried to talk to Frank- 
lin about it. He, too, was irritated by it. He said some- 
thing about the average person loving a little authority 
and rejoicing in rules and following a custom and being 
unable to get an old idea or old ideas out their heads. It 
was abominable. 

There was the female here with the golden-rimmed eye- 
glasses and the stern, accusing eye behind it. "Are you 
or are you not of the best, artistically and socially? 
Answer yes or avaunt." There were tall, uncomfortable- 
looking gentlemen in cutaway coats, and the stiffest of 
stiff collars, led at chains' ends by stout, executive wives 
who glared and stared and pawed things over. The 
chains were not visible to the naked eye, but they 
were there. Then there were nervous, fussy, somewhat 
undersized gentlemen with white side whiskers and an air 
of delicate and uncertain inquiry, going timidly to and 
fro. There were old and young maids of a severe liter- 
ary and artistic turn. I never saw better materials nor 
poorer taste than in their clothes. I remarked to Frank- 
lin that there was not one easy, natural, beautiful woman 
in the whole group, and after scrutinizing them all he 
agreed with me. 

"Now, Franklin," I said, "this shows you what the best 
circles of art and literature should really be like. Once 
you're truly successful and have established a colony of 
your own — East Franklinia, let us say, or Booth-a-rootha 
— they will come and visit you in this fashion." 

"Not if I know it, they won't," he replied. 

The crowd increased. Those who in some institutions 
might be known as waiters and waitresses, but who here 



i68 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

were art directors and directoresses at the very least, 
were bustling to and fro, armed with all authority and 
not at all overawed by the standing throng which had 
now gathered outside the diningroom door. I never 
saw a more glistening array of fancy glass, plates, cups, 
knives, forks, spoons, flowers. The small black mission 
tables — Elbert Hubbardized, of course — were stuffed 
with this sort of thing to the breaking point. The room 
fairly sparkled as though the landlord had said, "I'll 
give these people their money's worth if it takes all the 
plate in the place. They love show and must have it." I 
began to feel a little sick and nervous. It was all so 
grand, and the people about us so plainly avid for it, 
that I said, "Oh, God, just for a simple, plain board, 
with an humble yellow plate in the middle. What should 
I be doing here, anyhow?" 

"Well, Franklin," I said, as gaily as I could, "this is 
going to be a very sumptuous affair — a very, very 
sumptuous affair." 

He looked at me wisely, at the crowd, at the long 
curio case diningroom, and hesitated, but something 
seemed to be stirring within him. 

"What do you say to leaving?" he finally observed. 
"It seems to me" — then he stopped. His essential good 
nature and charity would not permit him to criticize. I 
heaved a sigh of relief, hungry as I was. 

We hustled out. I was so happy I forgot all about 
dinner. There was dear old Speed, as human as any- 
thing, sitting comfortably in the front seat, no coat on, 
his feet amid the machinery for starting things, a cig- 
arette in his mouth, the comic supplement of some Sun- 
day paper spread out before him, as complacent and 
serene as anyone could be. 

He swung the car around in a trice, and was off. Be- 
fore us lay a long street, overhung with branches through 
which the sunlight was falling in lovely mottled effects. 
Overhead was the blue sky. Outward, to right and left, 
were open fields — the great, enduring, open fields. 

"It was a bit too much, wasn't it?" said Franklin. 



CHAPTER XXI 

BUFFALO OLD AND NEW 

We had traveled now between six and seven hundred 
miles, and but for a short half mile between Nicholsen 
and New Milford, Pennsylvania, we could scarcely say 
that we had seen any bad roads — seriously impeding ones. 
To be sure, we had sought only the best ones in most 
cases, not always, and there were those patches of state 
road, cut up by heavy hauling, which we had to skirt; 
but all things considered, the roads so far had been 
wonderful. From East Aurora into Buffalo there was a 
solid, smooth, red brick boulevard, thirty feet wide and 
twelve miles long, over which we raced as though it 
were a bowling alley. The bricks were all vitrified and 
entirely new. I know nothing about the durability of 
such a road, and this one gave no evidence of its wearing 
qualities, but if many such roads are to be built, and 
they stand the wear, America will have a road system un- 
rivaled. 

As we were spinning along, the factories and high 
buildings and chimneys of Buffalo, coming into view 
across a flat space of land, somehow reminded me of 
those older hill cities of Europe which one sees across 
a space of land from a train, but which are dead, dead. 
"Here is life," I said to myself, "only here nothing has 
happened as yet, historically; whereas there, men have 
fought to and fro over every inch of the ground." How 
would it be if one could say of Buffalo that in 23 1 6 A. D. 
— four hundred years after the writing of this — there was 
a great labor leader who having endured many injuries 
was tired of the exactions of the money barons and se- 
curing a large following of the working people seized 
the city and administered it cooperatively, until he had 

169 



I70 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

been routed by some capitalistic force and hanged from 
the highest building, his followers) also being put to 
death? Or suppose a great rebellion had originated in 
New Mexico, and it had reached Buffalo and Pittsburg 
in its onsweep, and that here an enormous battle had been 
fought — an Austerlitz or a Waterloo? How we should 
stare at the towers as we came across this plain! How 
great names would rise up and flash across the si<y! We 
would hear old war songs in our ears and dream old war 
dreams. Or suppose there were a great cathedral or a 
great museum crowded with the almost forgotten art of 
the twentieth, twentyfirst and twentysecond centuries! 

I dream. Yet such are the things which somehow make 
a great city. But lacking in historic charm as Buffalo 
might be, the city had a peculiar interest for me, a very 
special one indeed, egoist that I am. For here, one 
springtime, twenty years before this, I entered Buffalo 
looking for work. Fear not, I am not going to begin 
a romantic and sentimental account of my youth and 
early struggles. It was still late March and very chilly. 
There was snow on the ground, but a touch of Spring 
in the air. I had come on from Cleveland, where I had 
failed to find anything to do, and was destined to go on 
to Pittsburg from here, for I could not make a permanent 
connection with any Buffalo paper. I was a lonely, lank, 
impossible newspaper type as I see myself now, and so 
sentimental and wistful that I must have seemed a fool 
to practical men. They never troubled to pay me a 
decent salary, I know that. But instead of looking 
briskly and earnestly for work, as you might think a boy 
with only a few dollars in his pocket and no friends any- 
where within hundreds of miles would do, I spent my 
time mooning over what seemed then great streets and 
over the harbor waters near at hand, with their great 
grain elevators and ships and coal pockets. Ah, those 
small rivers with their boats and tugs and their romantic 
suggestion of the sea, — how I yearned over them ! 

At that time I traveled by trolley to Niagara, nearly 
forty miles away, and looked at that tumbling flood, 



I 



BUFFALO OLD AND NEW 171 

which was then not chained or drained by turbine water 
power sluices. I was impressed, but somehow not quite 
so much as I thought I would be. Standing out on a 
rock near the greatest volume of water, under a grey 
sky, I got dizzy and felt as though I were being carried 
along, whether I wanted to or not. Farther up stream 
I stared at the water as it gathered force and speed, and 
wondered how I should feel if I were in a small canoe 
and were fighting it for my life. Below the falls I gazed 
up at the splendid spray and wanted to shout, so vigor- 
ously did the water fall and smash the rocks below. 
When I returned to Buffalo and my room, I congratulated 
myself that if I had got nothing else, so far, out of Buf- 
falo, at least I had gained this. 

Beyond having traveled from Warsaw to Chicago and 
thence to St. Louis and from St. Louis to this same city, 
via Toledo, and Cleveland, I had never really been any- 
where, and life was all wonderful. No songs of Shelley, 
nor those strange wild lines of Euripides could outsing 
my mood at this time. I dreamed and dreamed here in 
this crude manufacturing town, roaming about those 
chilly streets, and now as I look back upon it, knowing 
that never again can I feel as I then felt, I seem to know 
that actually it was as wonderful as I had thought it 
was. 

The spirit of America at that time was so remarkable. 
It was just entering on that vast, splendid, most lawless 
and most savage period in which the great financiers, now 
nearly all dead, were plotting and conniving the enslave- 
ment of the people and belaboring each other for power. 
Those crude and parvenu dynasties which now sit en- 
throned in our democracy, threatening its very life with 
their pretensions and assumptions, were just in the be- 
ginning. John D. Rockefeller was still in Cleveland. 
Flagler, William Rockefeller, H. H. Rogers, were still 
comparatively young and secret agents. Carnegie was 
still in Pittsburg — an iron master — and of all his brood 
of powerful children only Frick had appeared. William 
H. Vanderbilt and Jay Gould had only recently died. 



172 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

Cleveland was president and Mark Hanna was an un- 
known business man in Cleveland. The great struggles 
of the railroads, the coal companies, the gas companies, 
the oil companies, were still in abeyance, or just begin- 
ning. The multimillionaire had arrived, it is true, but 
not the billionaire. Giants were plotting, lighting, dream- 
ing on every hand, and in this city, as in every other 
American city I then visited, there was a singing, illu- 
sioned spirit. Actually, the average American then be- 
lieved that the possession of money would certainly solve 
all his earthly ills. You could see it in the faces of the 
people, in their step and manner. Power, power, power, 
— everyone was seeking power in the land of the free and 
the home of the brave. There was almost an angry dis- 
satisfaction with inefficiency, or slowness, or age, or any- 
thing which did not tend directly to the accumulation of 
riches. The American world of that day wanted you 
to eat, sleep and dream money and power. 

And I, to whom my future was still a mystery (would 
that it were so still!), was dreaming of love and power, 
too, but with no theory of realizing them and with no 
understanding, indeed, of any way in which I could 
achieve the happiness and pleasures which I desired. 
Knowing this, I was unhappy. All day, after a fifteen 
cent breakfast in some cheap restaurant, or some twenty- 
five cent dinner in another, I would wander about, star- 
ing at these streets and their crowds, the high buildings, 
the great hotels, uncertain whether to go on to Pitts- 
burg or to hang on here a little while longer in the hope 
of getting a suitable position as a reporter. Ah, I 
thought, if I could just be a great newspaper man, like 
McCullagh of St. Louis, or Dana of New York! In 
my pocket was a letter from the proprietor of the St. 
Louis Republic, telling all and sundry what a remarkable 
youth he had found me to be, but somehow I never felt 
courageous enough to present it. It seemed so vain- 
glorious! Instead, I hung over the rails of bridges and 
the walls of water fronts, watching the gulls, or stopped 
before the windows of shops and stores, and outside 



BUFFALO OLD AND NEW 173 

great factories, and stared. At night I would return to 
my gloomy room and sit and read, or having eaten some- 
where, walk the streets. I haunted the newspaper offices 
at the proper hours, but finding nothing, finally departed. 
Buffalo seemed a great but hard and cold city. Spin- 
ning into it this day, over long viaducts and through 
regions of seemingly endless factories and cars, it still 
seemed quite as vigorous, only not so hard, because my 
circumstances were different. Alas, I said to myself, I 
am no longer young, no longer really poor in the sense 
of being uncertain and inefficient, no longer so dreamy 
or moony over a future the details of which I may not 
know. Then all was uncertain, gay with hope or dark 
with fear. It might bring me anything or nothing. But 
now, now — what can it bring as wonderful as what I 
thought it might bring? What youth, I said to myself, 
is now walking about lonely, wistful, dreaming great 
dreams, and wishing, wishing, wishing? I would be that 
one if I could. Yes, I would go back for the dreams' 
sake, — the illusion of life. I would take hold of life as 
it was, and sigh and yearn and dream. 
Or would I go back if I could? 

We did not stay so long in Buffalo this day, but longer 
than we would have if we could have discovered at once 
that Canada had placed a heavy license tax on all cars 
entering Canada, and that, because of the European 
War, I presume, we would have to submit to a more 
thorough and tedious examination of our luggage than 
ordinarily. The war! The war! They were chasing 
German-American professors out of Canadian colleges, 
and making other demonsirations of hostility towards 
all others having pro-German leanings. 1, with my Ger- 
man ancestry on one side and my German name and my 
German sympathies — what might they not have done 
to me ! We didn't go. In spite of our plans to cross into 
Canada here and come out at Detroit at the west end of 
Lake Erie, we listened to words of wisdom and refrained. 
The automobile expert of the Statler assured us that 



174 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

we would have a great deal of trouble. There would 
be an extra tax, delays, explanations, and examination of 
our luggage. A very handsome cigar clerk in this same 
hotel — what an expensive youth he was, in a very high 
collar, a braided suit, and most roseate necktie! — told 
us with an air of condescension that made me feel like 
a mere beginner in this automobiling world: "It's noth- 
ing to do now. What car have you?" 

We told him. 

"Ah, no, you need a big racer like the (nam- 
ing a car which neither Franklin nor I had ever heard 
of). Then you can make it in a day. There's nothing 
to see. You don't wanta stop." 

He patronized us so thoroughly from the vantage 
point of his youth (say eighteen years), and his knowl- 
edge of all the makes of machines and the roads about 
Buffalo, that I began to feel that perhaps as a boy I 
had not lived at all. Such shoes, such a tie, such rings 
and pins I Everything about him seemed to speak of 
girls and barbers and florists and garages and tailors. 
The Buffalo white light district rose up before me, and 
all the giddy-gaudy whirl of local rathskellers and the 
like. 

"What a rowdy-dow boy it is, to be sure," I observed 
to Franklin. 

"Yes, there you have it," he replied. "Youth and in- 
experience triumphing over any possible weight of knowl- 
edge. What's the Encyclopedia Britannica compared to 
that?" 

Our lunch at one of the big (I use the word advisedly) 
restaurants, was another experience in the same way. 
Speed had gone off somewhere with the car to some 
smaller place and Franklin and I ambled into the large 
place. It was as bad as the Roycroft Inn from the point 
of view of pretentiousness and assumed perfection, but 
from another it was even worse. When we try to be 
luxurious in America, how luxurious we can really be I 
The heaviness of our panelings and decorations! the 
thickness of our carpets 1 the air of solidity and vigor and 



BUFFALO OLD AND NEW 175 

cost without very much taste ! It is Teutonic without 
that bizarre individuality which so often accompanies 
Teutonic architecture and decoration. We are so fine, 
and yet we are not — a sort of raw uncouthness showing 
like shabby woodwork from behind curtains of velvet and 
cloth of gold. 

Sometimes, you know, I remember that we are a mon- 
grel race and think we may never achieve anything of 
great import, so great is my dissatisfaction with the shows 
and vulgar gaucheries to be seen on all sides. At other 
times, viewing the upstanding middle class American 
with his vivid suit, yellow shoes, flaring tie and con- 
spicuous money roll, I want to compose an ode in praise 
of the final enfranchisement of the common soul. How 
much better these millions, I ask you, with their derby 
and fedora hats, their ready made suits, their flaring 
jewelry, automobiles and a general sense of well being, 
and even perfection, if you will, than a race of slaves 
or serfs, dominated by grand dukes, barons, beperfumed 
and beribboned counts, daimios and lords and ladies, 
however cultivated and artistic these may appear! True, 
the latter would eat more gracefully, but would they 
be any the more desirable for that, actually? I hear 
a thousand patrician minded souls exclaiming, "Yes, of 
course," and I hear a million lovers of democracy insist- 
ing "No." Personally, I would take a few giants in 
every field, well curbed, and then a great and comfortable 
mass such as I see about me in these restaurants, for 
instance, well curbed also. Then I would let them mix 
and mingle. 

But, oh, these restaurants ! 

And how long will it be before we will have just a few 
good ones in our cities? 



CHAPTER XXII 

ALONG THE ERIE SHORE 

If anyone doubts that this is fast becoming one of the 
most interesting lands in the world, let him motor from 
Buffalo to Detroit along the shore of Lake Erie, mile 
after mile, over a solid, vitrified brick road fifteen feet 
wide at the least, and approximately three hundred miles 
long. As a matter of fact, the vitrified brick road of 
this description appears to be seizing the imagination of 
the middle west, and the onslaught of the motor and its 
owner is making every town and hamlet desirous of shar- 
ing the wonders of a new life. Truly, I have never seen 
a finer road than this, parts of which we traversed be- 
tween Buffalo and Cleveland and between Cleveland and 
Sandusky. There were great gaps In it everywhere, 
where the newest portions were in process of completion, 
and the horrific "detour" sign was constantly in evidence, 
but traveling over the finished sections of it was some- 
thing like riding in paradise. Think of a long, smooth 
red brick road stretching out before you mile after mile, 
the blue waters of Lake Erie to your right, with its waves, 
ships and gulls; a flat, Holland-like farming land to your 
left, with occasional small white towns, factory centers, 
and then field upon field of hay, corn, cabbages, wheat, 
potatoes — mile after mile and mile after mile. 

Ohio is too flat. It hasn't the rural innocence and un- 
sophistication which Indiana seems still to retain, nor yet 
the characteristics of a thoroughgoing manufacturing 
world. There are too many factories and too many trol- 
ley lines, and a somewhat unsettled and uncertain feeling 
in the air, as if the state were undecided whether it would 
be all city and manufacturing or not. I hate that mid- 
state, uncertain feeling, which comes with a changing con- 

176 



ALONG THE ERIE SHORE 177 

dition anywhere. It is something like that restless sim- 
mering into which water bursts before it boils. One 
wishes that it would either boil or stop simmering. This, 
as nearly as I can suggest it, is the way the northern 
portion of Ohio that we saw impressed me. 

And, unlike my feeling of fifteen or twenty years ago, 
I think I am just a little weary of manufacturing and 
manufacturing towns, however well I recognize and ap- 
plaud their necessity. Some show a sense of harmony 
and joy in labor and enthusiasm for getting on and being 
happy; but others, such as Buffalo and Cleveland, seem to 
have fallen into that secondary or tertiary state in which 
all the enthusiasm of the original workers and seekers has 
passed, money and power and privileges having fallen 
into the hands of the few. There is nothing for the 
many save a kind of spiritless drudgery which no one ap- 
preciates and which gives a city a hard, unlovely and 
workaday air. I felt this to be so, keenly, in the cases 
of Buffalo and Cleveland, as of Manchester, Leeds and 
Liverpool. 

Years ago these American cities were increasing at 
the rate of from ten to fifty thousand a year. Then there 
was more of hope and enthusiasm about them than there 
is now, more of happy anticipation. It is true that they 
are still growing and that there is enthusiasm, but neither 
the growth nor the enthusiasm is of the same quality. As 
a nation, although we are only twentyfive to thirty years 
older in point of time, we are centuries older in view- 
point. We have experienced so much in these past few 
years. We have endured so much. That brood of giants 
that rose and wrought and fell between 1870 and 19 10 
— children of the dragon's teeth, all of them — wrought 
shackles in the night and bound us hand and foot. They 
have seized nearly all our national privileges, they have 
bedeviled the law and the courts and the national and 
state seats of legislation, they have laid a heavy hand 
upon our highways and all our means of communication, 
poisoned our food and suborned our colleges and news- 
papers; yet In spite of them, so young and strong are 



178 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

we, we have been going on, limping a little, but still ad- 
vancing. Giants who spring from dragon's teeth are our 
expensive luxury. In the high councils of nature there 
must be some need for them, else they never would have 
appeared. But I am convinced that these western cities 
have no longer that younger, singing mood they once had. 
We are soberer as a nation. Not every man can hope 
to be president, as we once fancied, — nor a millionaire. 
We are nearer the European standard of quiet, disillu- 
sioned effort, without so many great dreams to stir us. 

Departing from Buffalo, not stopping to revisit the 
Falls or those immense turbine generators or indeed any 
other thing thereabout, we encountered some men who 
knew Speed and who were starting a new automobile 
factory. They wanted him to come and work for them, 
so well known was he as a test man and expert driver. 
Then we came to a grimy section of factories on a canal 
or pond, so black and rancidly stale that it interested us. 
Factory sections have this in common with other purely 
individual and utilitarian things, — they can be interest- 
ing beyond any intention of those who plan them. This 
canal or pond was so slimy or oily, or both, that it con- 
stantly emitted bubbles of gas which gave the neighbor- 
hood an acrid odor. The chimneys and roofs of these 
warehouses rose in such an unusual way and composed 
so well that Franklin decided he should like to sketch 
them. So here we sat, he on the walking beam of a 
great shovel derrick lowered to near the ground, behind 
two tug boats anchored on the shore, while I made my- 
self comfortable on a pile of white gravel, some of which 
I threw into the water. I spent my time speculating as 
to what sort of people occupied the small drab houses 
which faced this picturesque prospect. I imagined a poet 
as great as Walt Whitman being able to live and take 
an interest in this grimy beauty, with thieves and pick- 
pockets and prostitutes of a low order for neighbors. 

A few blocks farther on there came into view an 
enormous grain elevator, standing up like a huge Egyp- 
tian temple in a flat plain. This elevator was composed 



"~t 



■yy^f 














■;i*y!;i.w6iia«*.- 



I 



EGYPT AT BUFFALO 
A Grain Elevator 



ALONG THE ERIE SHORE 179 

of a bundle of concrete tubes or stand pipes, capable of 
being separately filled or emptied, thus facilitating the 
loading and unloading of cars and allowing the separate 
storage of different lots of grain. Before it, as before 
the great bridge at Nicholsen, we paused, awestruck by 
its size and design, something colossal and ancient sug- 
gested by its lines. 

Then we sped out among small yellow or drab work- 
ingmen's cottages, their yards treeless for the most part, 
their walls smoky. 

Lone women were hanging over gates and working- 
men plodding heavily about with pipes in their mouths, 
and squeaky shoes and clothes too loose covering their 
bodies. Every now and then a church appeared — one 
of those noble institutions which represent to these poor 
clowns heaven, pearly gates and jasper streets. Great 
iron bridges came into view, or some small river or inlet 
crowded with great ships. Then came the lake shore, 
lit by a sinking and glorious afternoon sun, and a long 
stretch of that wonderful brick road, with enormous 
steel plants on either hand, thousands of automobiles, 
and lines of foreign looking workingmen going in and 
out of cottages straggling in conventional order across 
distant fields. Out over the water was an occasional 
white sail or a gull, or many gulls. Oh, gulls, gulls, 
I thought, take me into your free, wild world when 
I die! 

Just outside Buffalo, on a spit of land between this 
wonderful brick road and the lake, we came to the Tacka- 
wanna Steel Company, its scores of tall, black stacks 
belching clouds of smoke and its Immense steel pillar 
supported sheds showing the fires of the forges below. 
The great war had evidently brought prosperity to this 
concern, as to others. Thousands of men were evidently 
working here, Sunday though it was, for the several 
gates were crowded by foreign types of women carrying 
baskets and buckets, and the road and the one trolley 
line which ran along here for a distance were crowded 
with grimy workers, mostly of fine physical build. I nat- 



i8o A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

urally thought of all the shells and machine guns and 
cannon they might be making, and somehow it brought 
the great war a little nearer. Personally, I felt at the 
time that the war was likely to eventuate in favor of the 
Germans, in spite of all the odds against them, for 
anyone who had recently traveled through Germany, Eng- 
land, France and Italy could come to but one conclusion. 
One German was worth about fifty Italians in force and 
capacity, — and as for England, if left to contest with 
Germany alone, she would have been beaten to her knees 
in three months or less. 

Be that as it may, my mood was not belligerent and 
not pro-moral or pro-anything. I am too doubtful of 
life and its tendencies to enthuse over theories. With 
nations, as with individuals, the strongest or most desired 
win, and in the crisis which was then the Germans seemed 
to me the strongest. I merely hoped that America might 
keep out of it, in order that she might attain sufficient 
strength and judgment to battle for her own ideals in 
the future. For battle she must, never doubt it, and that 
from city to- city and state to state. If she survives the 
ultimate maelstrom, with her romantic ideals of faith 
and love and truth, it will be a miracle. 

This matter of manufacture and enormous industries 
Is always a fascinating thing to me, and careening along 
this lake shore at breakneck speed, I could not help mar- 
veling at it. It seems to point so clearly to a lordship 
in life, a hierarchy of powers, against which the common 
man is always struggling, but which he never quite over- 
comes, anywhere. The world is always palavering about 
the brotherhood of man and the freedom and indepen- 
dence of the individual; yet when you go through a city 
like Buffalo or Cleveland and see all its energy practically 
devoted to great factories and corporations and their in- 
terests, and when you see the common man, of whom 
there is so much talk as to his interests and superiority, 
living in cottages or long streets of flats without a vestige 
of charm or beauty, his labor fixed in price and his ideas 
circumscribed in part (else he would never be content 



ALOxNG THE ERIE SHORE i8i 

with so meager and grimy a world), you can scarcely 
believe in the equality or even the brotherhood of man, 
however much you may believe In the sympathy or good 
intentions of some people. 

These regions around Buffalo were most suggestive of 
the great division that has arisen between the common 
man and the man of executive ability and ideas here in 
America, — a division as old and as deep as life itself. I 
have no least complaint against the common man toiling 
for anybody with ideas and superior brains — who could 
have? — if it were not for the fact that the superior man 
inevitably seeks to arrange a dynasty of his blood, that 
his children and his children's children need never to 
turn a hand, whereas it is he only who is deserving, and 
not his children. Wealth tends to aristocracy, and your 
strong man comes almost inevitably to the conclusion 
that not only he but all that relates to him is of superior 
fiber. This may be and sometimes is true, no doubt, but 
not always, and it is the exception which causes all the 
trouble. The ordinary mortal should not be compelled 
to moil and delve for a fool. I refuse to think that it 
is either necessary or inevitable that I, or any other man, 
should work for a few dollars a day, skimping and long- 
ing, while another, a dunce, who never did anything but 
come into the world as the heir of a strong man, should 
take the heavy profits of my work and stuff them into 
his pockets. It has always been so, I'll admit, and it 
seems that there is an actual tendency in nature to con- 
tinue it; but I would just as lief contend with nature on 
this subject, if possible, as any other. We are not sure 
that nature inevitably wills it at that. Kings have been 
slain and parasitic dynasties trampled into the earth. 

Why not here and now? 



CHAPTER XXIII 

THE APPROACH TO ERIE 

Beyond the Tackawanna Steel Works there was a lake 
beach with thousands of people bathing and sausage and 
lemonade venders hawking their wares (I couldn't re- 
sist buying one "hot dog") ; and after that a long line, 
miles it seemed to me, of sumptuous country places fac- 
ing the lake, their roofs and gables showing through the 
trees; then the lake proper with not much interruption 
of view for a while; and then a detour, and then a flat, 
open country road, oiled until it was black, and then a 
white macadam road. Now that we were out of the hill 
and mountain country, I was missing those splendid rises 
and falls of earth which had so diverted me for days; 
but one cannot have hill country everywhere, and so as 
we sped along we endeavored to make the best of what 
was to be seen. These small white and grey wooden 
towns, with their white wooden churches and Sabbath 
ambling citizens, began to interest me. What a life, I 
said to myself, and what beliefs these people entertain! 
One could discern their creeds by the number of wooden 
and brick churches and the sense of a Sabbath stillness 
and propriety investing everything. At dusk, tiny church 
bells began to ring, church doors, revealing lighted in- 
teriors, stood open, and the people began to come forth 
from their homes and enter. I have no deadly opposi- 
tion to religion. The weak and troubled mind must have 
something on which to rest. It is only when in the form 
of priestcraft and ministerial conniving it becomes puffed 
up and arrogant and decides that all the world must 
think as it thinks, and do as it does, and that if one does 
not one is a heretic and an outcast, that I resent it. 

The effrontery of these theorists anyhow, with their 

182 



THE APPROACH TO ERIE 183 

sacraments and their catechisms ! Think of that mad dog 
Torquemada bestriding Spain like a Colossus, driving 
out eight hundred thousand innocent Jews, burning at the 
stake two thousand innocent doubters, stirring up all the 
ignorant animal prejudice of the masses, and leaving 
Spain the bleak and hungry land it is today! Think of 
it! — a priest, a theorist, a damned speculator in monastic 
abstrusities, being able to do anything like that! And 
then the Inquisition as a whole, the burning of poor John 
Huss, the sale of indulgences and the driving out of 
Luther. Beware of the enthusiastic religionist and his 
priestly servitors and leaders! Let not the theorist be- 
come too secure! Think of those who, in the name of a 
mystic unproven God, would seize on all your liberties 
and privileges, and put them in leash to a wild-eyed exor- 
cist romancer of the type of Peter the Hermit, for in- 
stance. Do not Asia and Africa show almost daily the 
insane uprising of some crack-brained Messiah ? Beware ! 
Look with suspicion upon all Billy Sundays and their ilk 
generally. Let not the uplifter and the reformer become 
too bold. They inflame the ignorant passions of the mob, 
who never think and never will. Already America is be- 
ing too freely tramped over by liquor reformers, maga- 
zine and book and picture censors, dreamers and cranks 
and lunatics who think that mob judgment is better than 
individual judgment, that the welfare of the ignorant 
mass should guide and regulate the spiritual inspiration 
of the individual. Think of one million, or one billion, 
factory hands, led by priests and preachers, able to dic- 
tate to a Spencer whether or not he should compile a 
synthetic philosophy — or to a Synge, whether he should 
write a "Play Boy of the Western World," or to a Vol- 
taire, whether he should publish a "Candide." 

Out on them for a swinish mass ! Shut up the churches, 
knock down the steeples! Harry them until they know 
the true place of religion, — a weak man's shield! Let 
us have no more balderdash concerning the duty of man 
to respect any theory. He can if he chooses. That is 



lU A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

his business. But when he seeks to dictate to his neighbor 
what he shall think, then it is a different matter. 

As I rode through this region this evening, I could 
not help feeling and seeing still operating here all the 
conditions which years ago I put safely behind me. Here 
were the people who still believed that God gave the Ten 
Commandments to Moses on Sinai and that Joshua made 
the sun to stand still in Avalon. They would hound you 
out of their midst for lack of faith in beliefs which other- 
where are silly children's tales, — or their leaders would. 

About seven o'clock, or a little later, we reached the 
town of Fredonia, still in New York State but near Its 
extreme western boundary. We came very near attend- 
ing church here, Franklin and I, because a church door 
on the square stood open and the congregation were- 
singing. Instead, after strolling about for a time, we 
compromised on a washup in a charming oldfashioned 
white, square, colonnaded hotel facing the park. We went 
to the only restaurant, the hotel diningroom being closed, 
and after that, while Speed took on a supply of gas and 
oil, we jested with an old Scotchman who had struck up 
a friendship with Speed and was telling him the history 
of his youth in Edinburgh, and how and why he wanted 
America to keep out of the war. He, too, had a me- 
chanical laugh, like that odd creature in the square at 
Bath, a kind of wild jackalesque grimace, which was 
kindly and cheerfully meant, however. Finally he grew 
so gay, having someone to talk to, that he executed a 
Jack-knife-ish automaton dance which amused me greatly. 
When Speed was ready we were off again, passing ham- 
let after hamlet and town after town, and entering Penn- 
sylvania again a few miles west (that small bit which 
cuts northward between Ohio and New York at Erie and 
interferes with the natural continuation of New York). 

The night was so fine and the wind so refreshing that 
I went off into dreamland again, not into actual sleeping 
dreams, but into something that was neither sleeping nor 
waking. These states that I achieved in this way were 



THE APPROACH TO ERIE 185 

so peculiar that I found myself dwelling on them after- 
ward. They were like the effects of a drug. In the 
trees that we passed I could see strange forms, all the 
more weird for the moonlight, which was very weak as 
yet, — grotesque hags and demons whose hair and beards 
were leaves and whose bony structures were branches. 
They quite moved me, as in childhood. And on the road 
we saw strolling lovers occasionally, arm in arm, some- 
times clasped in each other's arms, kissing, couples whom 
the flare of our headlights illumined with a cruel realism. 

A town called Brocton was passed, a fire arch over 
its principal street corner bidding all and sundry to stop 
and consider the joys of Brocton. A town called Pom- 
fret, sweet as trees and snug little houses could make it, 
had an hotel facing a principal corner, which caused us 
to pause and debate whether we would go on, it was so 
homelike. But having set our hearts, or our duty, on 
Erie, we felt it to be a weakness thus to pause and debate. 

On and on, through Westfield, Ripley, Northeast, 
Harbor Creek. It was growing late. At one of these 
towns we saw a most charming small hotel, snuggled in 
trees, with rocking chairs on a veranda in front and a 
light in the office which suggested a kind of expectancy 
of the stranger. It was after midnight now and I was 
so sleepy that the thought of a bed was like that of 
heaven to a good Christian. The most colorful, the most 
soothing sensations were playing over my body and in 
my brain. I was in that halcyon state where these things 
were either real or not, just as you chose — so intoxicat- 
ing or soothing is fresh air. Sometimes I was here, some- 
times in Warsaw or Sullivan or Evansville, Indiana, 
thirty years before, sometimes back in New York. Occa- 
sionally a jolt had brought me to, but I was soon back 
again in this twilight land where all was so lovely and 
where I wanted to remain. 

"Why should we go on Into Erie?" I sighed, once we 
were aroused. "It'll be hot and stuffy." 

Franklin got down and rang a bell, but no one an- 
swered. It was nearing one o'clock. Finally he came 



1 86 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

back and said, "Well, I can't seem to rout anybody out 
over there. Do you want to try?" 

Warm and sleepy, I climbed down. 

On the porch outside were a number of comfortable 
chairs. In the small, clean office was a light and more 
chairs. It looked like an ideal abiding place. 

I rang and rang and rang. The fact that I had been 
so drowsy made me irritable, and the fact that I could 
hear the bell tinkling and sputtering, but no voice reply- 
ing and no step, irritated me all the more. Then I kicked 
for a while and then I tried beating. 

Not a sound in response. 

"This is one swell hotel," I groaned irritably, and 
Speed, lighting a cigarette, added, 

"Well, I'd like to have a picture of that hotel keeper. 
He must be a sight, his nose up, his mouth open." 

Still no answer. Finally, in despair, I went out in the 
middle of the road and surveyed the hotel. It was most 
attractive in the moonlight, but absolutely dead to the 
world. 

"The blank, blank, blank, blank, blank, blank, blank," 
I called, resuscitating all my best and fiercest oaths. "To 
think that a blank, blank, blank, blank, blank could sleep 
that way anyhow. Here we are, trying to bring him a 
little business, and off he goes to bed, or she. Blank, 
blank, blank, the blank, blank, blanked old place any- 
how," and back I went and got into the car. 

"Say," called Speed, derisively, "ain't he a bird? 
Whaddy y'know. He's a great hotel keeper." 

"Oh, well," I said hopelessly, and Franklin added, 
"We're sure to get a good bed in Erie." 

So on we went, tearing along the road, eager to get 
anywhere, it was so late. 

But if we had known what was in store for us we 
would have returned to that small hotel, I think, and 
broken in its door, for a few miles farther on, an arrow, 
pointing northward, read, "Erie Main Road Closed." 
Then we recalled that there had been a great storm a 
few days or weeks before and that houses had been 



^ 






Jl 


^ >''*^'f^ 






\ 
^ 





THE APPROACH TO ERIE 187 

washed out by a freshet and a number of people had been 
killed. The road grew very bad. It was a dirt road, a 
kind of marshy, oily, mucky looking thing, cut into deep 
ruts. After a short distance under darksome trees, it 
turned into a wide, marshy looking area, with a number 
of railroad tracks crossing it from east to west and 
mimerous freight trains and switch engines jangling to 
and fro in the dark. A considerable distance off to the 
north, over a seeming waste of marshy land, was an 
immense fire sign which read, "Edison General Electric 
Company, Erie." Overhead, in a fine midnight trans- 
lucence, hung the stars, innumerable and clear, and I 
was content to lie back for a while, jolting as we were, 
and look at them. 

"Well, there's Erie, anyhow," I commented. "We 
can't lose that fire sign." 

"Yes, but look what's ahead of us," sighed Speed. 

As it developed, that fire sign had nothing to do with 
Erie proper but was stuck off on some windy beach or 
marsh, no doubt, miles from the city. To the west of 
it, a considerable distance, was a faint glow in the sky, 
a light that looked like anything save the reflection of a 
city, but so it was. And this road grew worse and worse. 
The car lurched so at times that I thought we might be 
thrown out. Speed was constantly stopping it and ex- 
amining the nature of certain ruts and pools farther on. 
He would stop and climb down and walk say four or five 
hundred feet and then come back, and bump on a little 
further. Finally, having gone a considerable distance on 
this course, we seemed to be mired. We would dash 
into a muddy slough and there the wheels would just spin 
without making any progress. The way out of this was 
to trample earth behind the wheels and then back up. 
I began to think we were good for a night in the open. 
Franklin and I walked back blocks and blocks to see 
whether by chance we hadn't gotten on the wrong road. 
Having decided that we were doing as well as could be 
expected under the circumstances, we returned and sat 
in the car. After much time wasted we struck a better 



1 88 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

portion of the road, coming to where it turned at right 
angles over the maze of unguarded tracks which we had 
been paralleling all this while. It was a treacherous 
place, with neither gates nor watchmen, but just a great 
welter of dark tracks with freight cars standing here 
and there, signal lights glimmering in the distance, and 
engines and trains switching up and down. 

"Shall we risk it?" asked Speed cautiously. 

"Sure, we'll have to," replied Franklin. "It's danger- 
ous but it's the only way." 

We raced over it at breakneck speed and into more 
unfriendly marshy country beyond. We reached a street, 
a far-out one, but nevertheless a street, without a house 
on it and only a few gas lamps flickering in the warm 
night air. In a region of small wooden cottages, so 
small as to be pathetic, we suddenly encountered one 
of those mounted police for which Pennsylvania is fa- 
mous, sitting by the curbing of a street corner, his gun 
in his hand and a saddle horse standing near. 

"Which way into Erie?" we called. 

"Straight on." 

"Is this where the storm was?" we asked. 

"Where the washout was," he replied. 

We could see where houses had been torn down or 
broken into or flung askew by some turbulent element 
much superior to these little shells in which people dwelt. 

Through brightly lighted hut apparently deserted 
streets we sped on, and finally found a public square with 
which Speed was familiar. He had been here before. 
We hurried up to an hotel, which was largely darkened 
for the night. Out of the door, just as we arrived, were 
coming two girls in frills and flounces, so conspicuously 
arrayed that they looked as though they must have been 
attending an affair of some kind. An hotel attendant was 
showing them to a taxi. Franklin went in to arrange for 
three adjoining rooms if possible, and as I followed I 
heard one attendant say to another, — they had both been 
showing the girls out — "Can you beat it? Say, they make 
theirs easy." 



THE APPROACH TO ERIE 189 

I wondered. The hotel was quite dark inside. 

In a few minutes we had adjusted our accommodations 
and were in our rooms, I in one with a tall window look- 
ing out into a spacious court. The bed was large and 
soft. I fairly fell out of my clothes and sank into it, just 
having sense enough to turn out the light. In a minute I 
fancy I was sound asleep, for the next thing I was con- 
scious of was three maids gossiping outside my door. 

"Blank, blank, blank," I began. "Am I not going to be 
allowed to get any sleep tonight?" 

To my astonishment, I discovered the window behind 
the curtains was blazing with light. 

I looked at my watch. It was nine o'clock. And we 
had turned in at three thirty. 



CHAPTER XXIV 

THE WRECKAGE OF A STORM 

The next day was another of travel in a hot sun over 
a country that in part lacked charm, in other parts was 
idyllically beautiful. We should have reached Sandusky 
and even the Indiana line by night, if we had been travel- 
ing as we expected. But to begin with, we made a late 
start, did not get out of Erie until noon, and that for vari- 
ous reasons, — a late rising, a very good breakfast and 
therefore a long one, a shave, a search for picture cards 
and what not. Our examination of the wreck made by 
the great storm and flood was extended, and having been 
up late the night before we were in a lazy mood anyhow. 

Erie proved exceedingly interesting to me because of 
two things. One of these was this: that the effects of 
the reported storm or flood were much more startling 
than I had supposed. The night before we had entered 
by some streets which apparently skirted the afilicted dis- 
trict, but today we saw it in all its casual naturalness, and 
it struck me as something well worth seeing. Blocks upon 
blocks of houses washed away, upset, piled in heaps, the 
debris including machinery, lumber, household goods, 
wagons and carts. Through one wall front torn away I 
saw a mass of sewing machines dumped in a heap. It 
had been an agency. In another there was a mass of 
wool in bags stacked up, all muddied by the water but 
otherwise intact. Grocery stores, butcher shops, a candy 
store, a drug store, factories and homes of all kinds 
had been broken into by the water or knocked down by 
the cataclysmic onslaught of water and nearly shaken 
to pieces. Ceilings were down, plaster stripped from the 
walls, bricks stacked in great heaps, — a sorry sight. 
We learned that thirtyfive people had been killed and 
many others injured. 

190 



THE WRECKAGE OF A STORM 191 

Another was that, aside from this Greek-like tragedy, 
it looked like the native town of Jennie Gerhardt, my 
pet heroine, though I wrote that she was born in Colum- 
bus, a place I have never visited in my life. 

[That reminds me that a Columbus book reviewer once 
remarked that it was easy to identify the various places 
mentioned in Columbus, that the study was so accurate I] 
But never having seen Columbus, and having another 
small city in mind, it chanced now that Erie answered the 
description exactly. These long, narrow, small housed, 
tree-shaded streets (in many instances saplings) dom- 
inated at intervals by large churches or factories, — this 
indubitably was the world in which Jennie originally 
moved, breathed, and had her being. I was fascinated 
when I arose in the morning, to find that this hotel was 
one such as the pretentious Senator Brander might have 
chosen to live in, and the polished brasses of whose hand- 
rails and stairsteps a woman of Mrs. Gerhardt's limited 
capabilities would have been employed to polish or scrub. 
Even the great plate-glass windows lined within and with- 
out by comfortable chairs commanding, as they did, 
the principal public square or park and all the fascinating 
forces of so vigorous and young a town, were such as 
would naturally be occupied by the bloods and sports of 
the village, the traveling salesmen, and the idling big- 
wigs of political and other realms. It was an excellent 
hotel, none better; as clean, comfortable and tasteful as 
one would wish in this workaday world; and past its win- 
dows when I first came down looking for a morning 
paper, were tripping a few shop girls and belated workers 
carrying lunch boxes. 

"Jennie's world to the life," I thought. "Poor little 
girl." 

But the seventyfive thousand people here — how did 
they manage to pass their lives without the manifold 
opportunities and diversions which fill, or can, at least, 
the minds of the citizens of Paris, Rome, London, Chi- 
cago, New York? Here were all these thousands, work- 
ing and dreaming perhaps, but how did they fill their 



192 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

lives? I pictured them as dressing at breakfast time, 
going to work each morning, and then after a day at 
machines or in stores, with lunches on counter or work- 
bench, returning at night, a fair proportion of them at 
any rate, to the very little houses we had seen coming in; 
and after reading those impossible, helter-skelter, hig- 
gledy-piggledy, hodge-podges of rumor, false witness, 
romance, malice, evil glamour and what not — the evening 
newspapers — retiring to their virtuous couches, socalled, 
to rise again the next day. 

I am under no illusions as to these towns, and I hold 
no highflown notions as to our splendid citizenry, and 
yet I am intensely sympathetic with them. I have had 
too much evidence in my time of how they do and feel. 
I always wonder how it is that people who entertain 
such highflown ideas of how people are and what they 
think and say — in writing, theorizing, editorializing — 
manage to hold such practical and even fierce relations 
with life itself. Every one of those simple American 
towns through which we had been passing had its red 
light district. Every one had its quota of saloons and 
dives, as well as churches and honorable homes. Who 
keeps the vulgar, shabby, gross, immoral, inartistic end 
of things going, if we are all so splendid and worthy as 
so many current, top-lofty theorizers would have us be- 
lieve? Here in this little city of Erie, as in every other 
peaceful American hamlet, you would find the more ani- 
mal and vigorous among them turning to those same red 
streets and dives we have been speaking of, while the 
paler, more storm-beaten, less animal or vigorous, more 
life-harried, take to the darksome doors of the church. 
Necessity drives the vast majority of them along paths 
which they fain would not travel, and the factories and 
stores in which they work eat up a vitality which other- 
wise might show itself in wild and unpleasant ways. 

Here, as I have said, in these plain, uninteresting 
streets was more evidence of that stern destiny and in- 
considerateness of the gods which the Greeks so well 
understood and with such majesty noted, and which al- 



THE WRECKAGE OF A STORM 193 

ways causes me to wonder how religion manages to sur- 
vive in any form. For here, several weeks before, was 
this simple, virtuous town (if we are to believe the moral- 
istic tosh which runs through ail our American papers), 
sitting down after its dinner and a hard day's work to 
read the evening paper. It was deserving not only of 
the encomiums of men, but of gods, presumably. And 
then, the gods presiding over and regulating all things in 
the interest of man, a rainstorm comes up and swells a 
small creek or rivulet running through the heart of the 
town and under small bridges, culverts and even houses — 
so small is it — into a kind of foaming torrent. All is go- 
ing well so far. The culverts and bridges and stream beds 
are large enough to permit the water to be carried away. 
Only a few roofs are blown off, a few churches struck by 
lightning, one or two people killed in an ordinary, elec- 
tric storm way. 

Enters then the element of human error. This is 
always the great point with all moralists. Once the 
crimes or mistakes or indifferences of the ruling powers 
could be frankly and squarely placed on the shoulders of 
the devil. No one could explain how a devil who could 
commit so much error came to live and reign in the same 
universe with an omnipotent God, but even so. The 
devil, however, having become a mythical and threadbare 
scapegoat, it finally became necessary to invent some new 
palliative of omnipotent action, and so human error came 
into being as a whipping dummy — man's troubles are 
due to his own mistaken tendencies, though there is a 
God who creates and can guide him and who does punish 
him for doing the things which he ought to know better 
than to do. 

Selah! So be it. But here in Erie is this honest or 
reprehensible community, as you will, and here is the 
extra severe thunder and rain storm, — a cloudburst, no 
less. The small brook or rivulet swells and swells. Peo- 
ple notice it, perhaps, looking out of their doors and 
windows, but it seems to be doing well enough. Then, 
unknown to the great majority of them, a barn a num- 



194 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

ber of blocks out, a poor, humanly erroneous bam, is 
washed away against a fair-sized culvert, blocking it 
completely. 

The gully beyond the culvert, upstream, is very large 
and it fills and fills with water. Because of its some- 
what widening character a small lake forms, — a heavy 
body of water pressing every moment more and more 
heavily against the culvert. When the former has 
swollen to a great size this latter gives way. There is 
a downward rush of water — a small mountain of water, 
no less. Bridges, culverts, houses built over the brook, 
houses for two blocks on either hand, are suddenly 
pressed against or even partially filled by water. Citizens 
reading their evening newspapers, or playing the ac- 
cordeon or the victrola or cards or checkers or what you 
will, feel their houses begin to move. Chimneys and 
plaster fall. Houses collapse completely. In one house 
eight are instantly killed, — a judgment of God, no doubt, 
on their particular kind of wickedness. In another house 
three, in another house four; death being apportioned, 
no doubt, according to the quality of their crimes. 
Altogether, thirtyfive die, many are injured, and scores 
upon scores of houses, covering an area of twentysix 
blocks in length, are moved, upset, floated blocks from 
their normal position, or shaken to pieces or consumed 
by fire. 

The fire department is called out and the Pennsylvania 
mounted police. The moving picture camera men come 
and turn an honest penny. Picture postcard dealers who 
make money out of cards at a cent apiece photograph 
all the horrors. The newspapers get out extras, thereby 
profiting a few dollars, and all Erie, and even all America 
is interested, entertained, emotionalized. Even we, com.- 
ing several weeks later and seeing only carpenters, ma- 
sons, and plumbers at work, where houses are lying about 
in ruins, are intensely concerned. We ride about exam- 
ining all the debris and getting a fine wonder out of it, 
until we are ordered back, at one place, by a thick-witted 
mounted policeman whose horse has taken fright at our 



THE WRECKAGE OF A STORM 195 

machine; a thing which a mounted poHceman's horse 
should never do, and which makes a sort of fool of him 
and so irritates him greatly. 

"Get out of here I" he shouted angrily at one street 
corner, glaring at us, "sticking your damn noses into 
everything!" 

"What the hell ails you anyhow?" I replied, equally 
irritable, for we had just been directed by another mounted 
policeman whose horse had not been frightened by us, to 
come down in here and see some real tragedy — "The 
policeman at the last corner told us to come in here." 

"Well, you can't come in. Get out!" and he flicked 
his boot with his hand in a contemptuous way. 

"Ah, go to hell," I replied angrily, but we had to move 
just the same. The law in boots and a wide rimmed hat, 
a la Silver City, was before us. 

We got out, cursing the mounted policeman, for who 
wants to argue with a long, lean, thin-faced, sallow Penn- 
sylvanian armed with a great sixteen shot revolver? God 
has never been just to me. He has never made me a 
mounted policeman. As we cruised about in Franklin's 
car, looking at all the debris and ruin, I speculated on 
this problem in ethics and morals or theism or what you 
will: Why didn't God stop this flood if he loved these 
people? Or is there no God or force or intelligence to 
think about them at all? Why are we here, anyhow? 
Were there any unjust, or only just among them? Why 
select Erie when He might have assailed Pittsburg or 
Broadway and Fortysecond Street, New York, or Phila- 
delphia ? Think of what a splendid evidence of judgment 
that last would have been, or Brooklyn! Oh, God, why 
not Brooklyn? Why eight people in one house and only 
one in another and none in many others? Do I seem 
much too ribald, dear reader? Were the people them- 
selves responsible for not building good barns or culverts 
or anticipating freshets? Will it come about after a 
while that every single man will think of the welfare of 
all other men before he does anything, and so build and 
so do that no other man will be injured by any action of 



196 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

his? And will every man have the brains (given by God) 
so to do — or will God prevent freshets and washouts 
and barns being swept against weak culverts? 

I am an honest inquirer. I was asking myself these 
very questions, wondering over the justice or injustice of 
life. Do you think there is any such thing as justice, or 
will you agree with Euripides, as I invariably feel that 
I must? 

"Great treasure halls hath Zeus in heaven, 
From whence to man strange dooms are given 

Past hope or fear. 
And the end looked for cometh not, 
And a path is there where no man thought. 

So hath it fallen here." 



CHAPTER XXV 

CONNEAUT 

More splendid lake road beyond Erie, though we 
were constantly running into detours which took us through 
sections dreadful to contemplate. The next place of any 
importance was the city of Conneaut, Ohio, which re- 
vealed one form of mechanical advance I had never 
dreamed existed. Conneaut being "contagious," as Phil- 
osopher Dooley used to say, to the coal fields of Pennsyl- 
vania — hard and soft — and incidentally (by water) to 
the iron and copper mines "up Superior way" in north- 
ern Michigan, a kind of transshipping business has sprung 
up, the coal from these mines being brought here and 
loaded onto boats for all points on the Great Lakes. 
Similarly copper and iron coming down from upper 
Michigan and Wisconsin on boats are here taken out and 
loaded into cars. I never knew before that iron ore was 
powdered for shipment — it looks just like a dull red 
earth — or that they stored it in great hills pending a day 
of use, — hills which looked to me as though a thousand 
ships might not lower them in a year. John D. Rock- 
efeller, I am told, was the guiding spirit in all this devel- 
opment here, having first seen the profit and convenience 
of bringing ore from the mines in northern Michigan 
south by water to the mills of Pennsylvania and inciden- 
tally returning in the same carriers coal to all parts of the 
Great Lakes and elsewhere. A canny man, that. Won't 
some American Homer kindly sing of him as one of the 
great wonders of the world? 

Optically and for a material thrill, the machinery for 
transshipping these enormous supplies was most interest- 
ing to me. 

Suppose you were able to take an iron car weighing 

197 



198 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

say thirty or forty thousand pounds, load it with coal 
weighing thirty or forty thousand pounds more, and turn 
it up, quite as you would a coal scuttle, and empty the 
contents into a waiting ship. . . . Then suppose you 
looked in the car and saw three or four pieces of coal 
still lying in it and said to yourself, "Oh, well, I might 
as well dump these in, too," and then you lifted up the 
car and dumped the remaining two or three pieces out — 
wouldn't you feel rather strong? 

Well, that is what is being done at Conneaut, Ohio, 
morning, noon and night, and often all night, as all day. 
The boats bringing these immense loads of iron ore 
are waiting to take back coal, and so this enormous proc- 
ess of loading and unloading goes on continually. Frank- 
lin and I were standing on a high bank commanding all 
this and a wonderful view of Lake Erie, never dreaming 
that the little box-like things we saw in the distance being 
elevated and turned over were steel coal cars, when he 
suddenly exclaimed, "I do believe those things over there 
are cars, Dreiser, — steel coal cars." 

"Get outl" I replied incredulously. 

"That's what they are," he insisted. "We'll have 
Speed run the machine over onto that other hill, and then 
we can be sure." 

From this second vantage point it was all very clear — 
great cars being run upon a platform, elevated quickly 
to a given position over a runway or coal chute leading 
down into the hold of a waiting steamer, and then quickly 
and completely upset; the last few coals being shaken 
out as though each grain were precious. 

"How long do you think it takes them to fill a ship like 
that?" I queried. 

"Oh, I don't know," replied Franklin meditatively. 

"Let's see how long it takes to empty a car." 

We timed them — one car every three minutes. 

"That means twenty cars an hour," I figured, "or one 
hundred cars in five hours. That ought to fill any 
steamer." 

A little farther along this same shore, reaching out 



CONNEAUT 199 

toward the lake, where ev-entually was a small, white 
lighthouse, were those same hills of red powdered Iron 
I have been telling you about — great long hills that it 
must have taken ships and ships and ships of Iron to 
build. I thought of the ownership of all those things, 
the Iron and copper mines in northern Michigan, the vast 
coal beds In Pennsylvania and elsewhere, and how they 
were acquired. Did you ever read a true history of 
them? I'll wager you haven't. Well, there Is one, not 
so detached as It might be, a little propagandist^ in tone 
In spots, but for all that a true and effective work. It Is 
entitled "A History of the Great American Fortunes," 
by one Gustavus Myers, a curious soul, and 111 repaid, as 
I have reason to know, for his untiring energy. It Is 
really a most important work, and can be had In three 
compact volumes for about six dollars. It is almost too 
good to be true, a thorough going, forthright statement 
of the whole process. Some of his expositions make clear 
the almost hopeless nature of democracy, — and that Is a 
very Important thing to discover. 

As I have said, this northern portion of Ohio Is a mix- 
ture of half city and half country, and this little city of 
Conneaut was an interesting illustration of the rural 
American grappling with the metropolitan Idea. In one 
Imposing drug or candy store (the two are almost syn- 
onymous these days) to which Franklin and I went for 
a drink of soda, we met a striking example of the rural 
fixity of Idea, or perhaps better, religiosity of mind or 
prejudice. In regard to certain normal human appetites 
or vices. In most of these small towns and cities in Ohio 
these days, total abstinence from all Intoxicating liquors 
is enforced by local option. In Conneaut local option had 
decided that no Intoxicating liquor of any kind should 
be sold there. But since human nature Is as It Is and must 
have some small outlet for its human naturalness, appa- 
rently they now get what are sometimes called near- 
drinks, which are sold under such enticing names as 
"Sparkade" (which Is nothing more than a carbonated 
cider or apple juice), "Gayola," "Cheercoala," and a 



200 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

score of other, — all dosed, no doubt, with a trace of some 
temporarily bracing drug, like caffeine or kolanut. The 
one which I tried on this occasion was "Sparkade," a 
feeble, watery thing, which was advertised to have all 
the invigorating qualities of champagne and to taste the 
same. 

"Has this any real champagne in it?" I asked the 
conventional but rosy cheeked girl who waited on me, 
jestingly. 

"No, sir. I don't think so, sir. I've never tried it, 
though." 

"What?" I said, "Never tried this wonderful drink? 
Have you ever tasted champagne?" 

"Indeed, not!" she replied, with a concerned and self- 
preservative air. 

"What, never? Well, then, there's your chance. I'm 
going to drink a bottle of Sparkade and you can taste 
mine." 

I poured out the bubbling stuff and offered it to her. 

"No, thank you," she replied haughtily, and as I still 
held it toward her, "No, thank you! I never touch any- 
thing of that kind." 

"But you say it is a nonintoxicant?" 

"Well, I think it is, but I'm not sure. And anyhow, I 
don't think I'd care for it." 

"Don't you belong to some society that is opposed to 
intoxicants of all kinds?" I queried teasingly. 

"Yes, sir. Our church is opposed to liquor in any 
form." 

"Even Sparkade?" I persisted. 

She made a contemptuous mouth. 

"There you have it, Franklin," I said to him. "You 
see — the Church rules here — a moral opinion. That's 
the way to bring up the rising generation — above cor- 
ruption." 

But outside Conneaut was so delightful. There was 
such a downpour of sunlight upon great, wide armed trees 
and mottling the sidewalks and roadways. In the local 
garage where we stopped for oil and some tools all was 




* ( 






















O 



H--1 



CONNEAUT 20 1 

so orderly and clean — a veritable cosmos of mechanical 
intricacies which set me to meditating on the vast array 
of specialties into which the human mind may delve and 
make a living. Citizens were drifting about in an easy, 
summery way it seemed to me, — not with that hard 
pressure which seems to afflict the members of many larger 
cities. I felt so comfortable here, so much like idling. 
And Franklin and Speed seemed in the same mood. 

Query. Was it the noon hour? or the gay, delicious 
sunlight seen through trees? or some inherent, spiritual 
quality in Conneaut itself? Query. 

Beyond Conneaut we scuttled over more of that won- 
derful road, always in sight of the lake and so fine that 
when completed it will be the peer of any scenic route 
in the world, I fancy. Though as yet but earth, it was 
fast being macfe into brick. And positively I may assure 
you that you need ne\er believe people you meet on the 
road and of whom you seek information as to shortest 
routes, places to eat, condition of road or the best roads. 
No traveling motorist seems to know, and no local resi- 
dent or wiseacre anywhere is to be trusted. People tell 
you all sorts of things and without the slightest positive 
information. Franklin told me that out in his home town, 
Carmel, he had discovered that the wise loafers who 
hang about the post office and public stores, and had 
lived in Hamilton County all their lives, had been for 
years uniformly misdirecting passing automobilists as to 
the best or shortest route between Carmel and Nobels- 
ville, Indiana. In some cases it might be done, he thought, 
in a spirit of deviltry, in others prejudice as to routes was 
responsible, in still others nothing more than blank igno- 
rance as to what constitutes good roads! 

Here in Conneaut, as we were entering the city by 
"the largest viaduct in the world," we asked an old toll 
keeper, who collected thirty cents from us as a token of 
his esteem, which was the shortest and best road to Ash- 
tabula and whether there wasn't a good shore road. 

"Well, now, I'll tell you," he began, striking a position 



202 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

and beginning to smooth his abundant whiskers. "There 
is a shore road that runs along the lake, but it hain't no 
good. If you're a-goin' fer business you'll take the Ridge 
Road, but if you're just out joy ridin' and don't care 
where you go, you can go by the lake. The Ridge Road's 
the business man's road. There hain't no good road along 
the lake at this time o' year, with all the rain we've been 
havin.' " 

Franklin, I am sure, was inclined to heed his advice at 
first, whereas I, having listened to similar bits of misin- 
formation all the way out from New York, was inclined 
to be skeptical and even angry, and besides the car wasn't 
mine. These wretched old fixtures, I said to myself, who 
had never been in an automobile more than a half dozen 
times in their lives, were the most convinced, apparently, 
as to the soundness of their information. They infuri- 
ated me at times, particularly when their advice tended 
to drive us out of the course I was interested in, and 
the shore road was the road I wanted to follow. I per- 
suaded Franklin to pay no attention to this old fussbutton. 

"What does he know?" I inquired. "There he sits at 
that bridge day in and day out and takes toll. Farmers 
with heavy loads may report all sorts of things, but we've 
seen how fine the dirt roads have been everywhere we've 
followed them." 

Speed agreed with me. 

So we struck out along the shore road and nothing 
could have been better. It was not exactly smooth, but 
it was soft with a light dust and so close to the lake that 
you could see the tumbling waves and throw a stone into 
them if you chose; and at certain points where a cove 
gave a wider view, there were people bathing and tents 
tacked down along the shore against the wind. It was 
wonderful. Every now and then we would encounter 
young men and women bathers ambling along the road 
in their water costumes, and in one instance the girl was 
so very shapely and so young and attractive that we ex- 
claimed with pleasure. When she saw us looking at her 



CONNEAUT 203 

she merely laughed and waved -her hands. At another 
point two young girls standing beside a fence called, 
"Don't you wish you could take us along?" They were 
attractive enough to make anybody wish it. 



CHAPTER XXVI 

THE GAY LIFE OF THE LAKE SHORE 

Then came Ashtabula with another such scene as 
that at Conneaut, only somewhat more picturesque, since 
the road lay on high ground and we had a most strik- 
ing view of the lake, with a world of coal cars wait- 
ing to be unloaded into ships, and ships and cranes and 
great moving derricks which formed a kind of filigree of 
iron in the distance with all the delicacy of an etching. 

These coal and iron towns of Ohio were as like in 
their way as the larger manufacturing centers of the 
East in theirs. Coming into this place we passed through 
a small slum section at the end of the bridge by which 
we were entering, and because there was a water scene 
here which suggested the Chicago River in its palmiest 
days before it was renovated and practically deserted, 
I suggested that we stop and look at it. Three bums of 
the "Chimmie" Fadden-"Chuck" Connors type were 
standing in a doorway adjoining a saloon. No sooner 
did they see us pause than they nudged each other and 
whispered. Franklin and I passed them to look at the 
scene. Coming back we climbed in the car, and as we 
did so the huskiest of the three stepped up and, with a 
look of humility assumed for the occasion, whimpered: 
"Say, boss, could you help a poor down-and-out to a 
mouthful of food?" 

I looked at him wearily, because the bluff was too 
much. 

Franklin, however, reached in his pocket and gave 
him fifteen cents. 

"Why fifteen cents, Franklin?" I enquired. 

"Oh, well," he replied, "it's an easy way to get rid 
of them. I don't like the looks of this place." 

204 



THE GAY LIFE OF THE LAKE SHORE 205 

I turned to look at the recipient back among his 
friends. His mouth was pulled down at one corner as 
he related, with a leer of contempt, how easy it was to 
bleed these suckers. He even smiled at me as much as 
to say, "You mark I" I leered back with the greatest 
contempt I could assemble on such short notice — a great 
deal — but it did not cheer me any. He had the fifteen 
cents. He was of the same order of brain that today 
can be hired to kill a man for fifty dollars, or will un- 
dertake to rob or burn a house. 

And after Ashtabula, which was as charming as any 
of these little cities to look at, with wide shady streets 
of homes and children playing gaily on lawns and in 
open lots everywhere, came Geneva-on-the-Lake, or 
Geneva Beach, as it seemed to be called — one of those 
new-sprung summer resorts of the middle west, which al- 
ways amuse me by their endless gaucheries and the things 
they have not and never seem to miss. One thing they 
do have is the charm of newness and hope and possi- 
bility, which excels almost anything of the kind you can 
find elsewhere. 

America can be the rawest, most awkward and inept 
land at times. You look at some of its scenes and people 
on occasions, and you wonder why the calves don't eat 
them. They are so verdant. And yet right in the midst 
of a thought like this you will be touched by a sense 
of youth and beauty and freedom and strength and hap- 
piness in a vigorous, garish way which will disarm you 
completely and make you want to become a part of it 
all, for a time anyhow. 

Here lay this particular beach, high up above the lake, 
for all along this northern portion of Ohio the land 
comes close to the water, retaining an altitude of sixty 
or seventy feet and then suddenly dropping, giving room 
for a sandy beach say sixty or seventy feet wide, where 
a few tents may sometimes be found. And on this 
higher land, facing the water, are strung out all the cot- 
tages and small hotels or summer boarding places, with 
occasionally some stores and merry-go-rounds and res- 



2o6 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

taurants, though not as a rule the gaudy rumble-jumble 
of a beach like Coney Island. 

And the costumes I Heaven bless and preserve us I 
The patrons of this beach, as I learned by inquiry, come 
mostly from Pittsburg and points south in Ohio — Colum- 
bus, Dayton, Youngstown. They bring their rattan bags 
and small trunks stuffed to bursting with all the contrap- 
tions of assumed high life, and here for a period of 
anywhere from two days to three months, according to 
their means, associations, social position, they may be 
seen disporting themselves in the most colorful and 
bizarre ways. There was a gay welter of yellow coats 
with sky-blue, or white, or black-and-white skirts — and 
of blue, green, red or brown coats, mostly knit of silk 
or near-silk — with dresses or skirts of as sharply con- 
trasting shades. Hats were a minus quantity, and rib- 
bons for the hair ranged all the way from thin blue or 
red threads to great flaring bands of ribbon done into 
enormous bows and fastened over one ear or the other. 
Green, blue, red and white striped stick candy is nothing 
by comparison. 

There were youths in tan, blue and white suits, but 
mostly white with sailor shirts open at the neck, white 
tennis shoes and little round white navy caps, which gave 
the majority of them a jocular, inconsequential air. 

And the lawns of these places I In England, and most 
other countries abroad, I noticed the inhabitants seek a 
kind of privacy even in their summer gaieties — an air 
of reserve and exclusiveness even at Monte Carlo — but 
here ! ! The lawns, doors and windows of the cottages 
and boarding houses were open to the eyes of all the 
world. There were no fences. Croquet, tennis, basket- 
ball were being played at intervals by the most vivid 
groups. There were swings, hammocks, rockers and 
camp chairs scattered about on lawns and porches. All 
the immediate vicinity seemed to be a-summering, and 
it wanted everyone to know it. 

As we sped into this region and stopped in front of 
a restaurant with a general store attachment at one side, 



THE GAY LIFE OF THE LAKE SHORE 207 

two youths of that summering texture I have indicated, 
and both in white, drew near. They were of a shal- 
low, vacant character. The sight of a dusty car, carry- 
ing a license tag not of their own state, and with bags 
and other paraphernalia strapped onto it, seemed to 
interest them. 

"From New York, eh?" inquired the taller, a cool, 
somewhat shrewd and calculating type, but with that 
shallowness of soul which I have indicated — quite vacant 
indeed. "Did you come all the way from New York 
City?" 

"Yes," said Franklin. "Is there a good restaurant 
anywhere hereabout?" 

"Well, this is about the best, outside the boarding 
houses and inns around here. You might find it nicer 
if you stayed at one of the inns, though." 

"Why?" asked Franklin. "Is the food better?" 

"Well, not so much better — no. But you'd meet nicer 
people. They're more sociable." 

"Yes, now our inn," put in the smaller one of the 
two, a veritable quip in his ultra-summer appearance. 
"Why don't you come over to our place? It's very nice 
there — lots of nice people." 

I began to look at them curiously. This sudden burst 
of friendship or genial companionship — taking up with 
the stranger so swiftly — interested me. Why should they 
be so quick to invite one to that intimacy which in most 
places is attained only after a period — and yet, when you 
come to think of it, I suddenly asked myself why not. 
Is chemistry such a slow thing that it can only detect 
its affinities through long, slow formal movements? I 
knew this was not true, but also I knew that there was 
no affinity here, of any kind — merely a shallow, butter- 
fly contact. These two seemed so very lightminded that 
I had to smile. 

"They're nice genial people, are they?" I put in. "Do 
you suppose we could introduce ourselves and be 
friendly?" 



2o8 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

"Oh, we'd introduce you — that's all right," put in this 
latest Sancho. "We can say you're friends of ours." 

"Shades of the Hall Room Boys!" I exclaimed to my- 
self. "What kind of world is this anyway — what sort 
of people? Here we ride up to a casino door in the 
heart of a summering community, and two souffle youths 
in white offer to introduce us to their friends as friends 
of theirs. Is it my looks, or Franklin's, or the car, or 
what?" 

A spirit of adventure began to well up in me. 
I thought of a few days spent here and what they might 
be made to mean. Thus introduced, we might soon find 
interesting companionship. 

But I looked at Franklin and my enthusiasm cooled 
slightly. For an adventure of any kind one needs an 
absolutely unified enthusiasm for the same thing, and 
I was by no means sure that it existed here. Franklin 
is so solemn at times — such a moral and social main- 
stay. I argued that it was best, perhaps, not to say 
all that was in my mind, but I looked about me hope- 
fully. Here were all those costumes I have indicated. 

"This seems to be quite a place," I said to this camp 
follower. "Where do they all come from?" 

"Oh, Pittsburg principally, and Cleveland. Most of 
the people right around here are from Pittsburg." 

"Is there very good bathing here?" 

"Wonderful. As good as anywhere." 
, I wondered what he knew about bathing anywhere but 
here. 

"And what else is there?" 

"Oh, tennis, golf, riding, boating." He fairly bristled 
with the social importance of the things he was sug- 
gesting. 

"They seem to have bright colors here," I went on. 

"You bet they do," he continued. "There are a lot 
of swell dressers here, aren't there, Ed?" 

"That's right," replied his summery friend. "Some 
beauts here. George! You ought to see 'em some 
days." 



THE GAY LIFE OF THE LAKE SHORE 209 

"They're very glorious, are thev?" 

"That's what" 

The conversation now turned back to us. Where were 
we going? What were we going for? Were we en- 
joynig the trip? Were the roads good? 

We told them of Indiana, and rose immediately in 
their estimation. We finally declined the invitation to 
be introduced mto their circle. Instead we went into 
this restaurant, where the reception room was also a 
salesroom of sorts, and here we idled, while awaiting 
dinner. ° 

I was still examining picture postcards when a young 
man, quite young, with a pink face and yellowish hair— 
a bcandmavian, I took it— came up beside me and stood 
looking at the pictures— almost over my shoulder I 
thought, though there was plenty of room in either direc- 
tion After a few moments I turned, somewhat irritated 
by his familiarity, and glanced at his shoes and suit, 
which were not of the best by any means, and at his 
hands, which were strong and well formed but rough 

Nice pictures of things about here," he observed, in 
a voice which seemed to have a trace of the Scandinavian 



in It. 



Yes, very, I replied, wondering a little, uncertain 
whether it was merely another genial American seeking 
anyone to talk to or someone desirous of aid. You never 
can tell. 

"Yes," he went on a little nervously, with a touch of 
strain in his voice, "it is nice to come to these places 
If you have the money. We all like to come to them 
when we can. Now I would like to come to a place 
like this but I haven't any money. I just walked in and 
1 thought maybe I might get something to do here It's 
a nice brisk place with lots of people working " 

"Now what's his game?" I asked myself, turning 
toward him and then away, for his manner smacked a 
little of that unctuous type of religious and charitable 
emotion which one encounters in side-street missions— a 



2IO A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

most despicable type of sanctimonious religiosity and 
duty worship. 

"Yes, it seems to be quite brisk," I replied, a little 
coldly. 

"But I have to get something yet tonight, that is sure, 
if I am to have a place to sleep and something to eat." 

He paused, and I looked at him, quite annoyed I am 
sure. "A beggar," I thought. "Beggars, tramps, and 
ne'er-do-wells and beginners are always selecting me. 
Well, I'll not give him anything. I'm tired of it. I did 
not come in here to be annoyed, and I won't be. Why 
should I always be annoyed? Why didn't he pick on 
Franklin?" I felt myself dreadfully aggrieved, I know. 

"You'll find the manager back there somewhere, I 
presume," I said, aloud. "I'm only a stranger here my- 
self." Then I turned away, but only to turn back as he 
started off. Something about him touched me — his 
youth, his strength, his ambitions, the interesting way he 
had addressed me. My rage wilted. I began to think 
of times when I was seeking work. "Wait a minute," I 
said; "here's the price of a meal, at least," and I handed 
him a bit of change. His face, which had remained 
rather tense and expressionless up to this time — the face 
that one always puts on in the presence of menacing 
degradation — softened. 

"Thank you, thank you," he said feverishly. "I haven't 
eaten today yet. Really I haven't. But I may get some- 
thing to do here." He smiled gratefully. 

I turned away and he approached the small dark 
American who was running this place, but I'm not sure 
that he got anything. The latter was a very irritable, 
waspish person, with no doubt many troubles of his own. 
Franklin approached and I turned to him, and when I 
looked again my beggar was gone. 

I often wish that I had more means and a kindlier 
demeanor wherewith to serve difficult, struggling youth. 

I could not help noticing that the whole region, as 
well as this restaurant, seemed new and crudely assem- 



THE GAY LIFE OF THE LAKE SHORE 211 

bled. The very management of this restaurant, the best 
in the place, was in all likelihood not the same which 
had obtained in the previous year. A thing like that is 
so characteristic of these mid-western resort atmospheres. 
The help (you could by no means call them waiters, for 
they were untrained in that branch of service) were girls, 
and mostly healthy, attractive ones — here, no doubt, in 
order to catch a beau or to be in a summer resort 
atmosphere. As I have previously indicated, anybody, 
according to the lay mind west of the Atlantic, can run 
a restaurant. If you have been a cook on a farm for 
some hay workers or reapers, so much the better. 
You are thereby entitled to cook and to be hailed 
as a restaurateur. Any domestic can "wait on table." 
All you have to do is to bring in the dishes and 
take them out again. All you need to do to steak or 
fish or fowl is to fry it. The art of selection, arrange- 
ment, combination are still mysteries of the decadent 
East. The West is above these things — the new West — 
God bless it I And if you ask for black coffee in a small 
cup, or potatoes prepared in any other way than fried, 
or should you desire a fish that carried with it its own 
peculiar sauce, they would stare at you as peculiar, or, 
better yet, with uncomprehending eyes. 

But these girls, outside and in — what a contrast in 
American social relationships they presented! During 
our dinner the two youths had departed and got two 
maids from somewhere — maids of the mildest, most 
summery aspect — and were now hanging about, pending 
our return, in order to have more words and to indicate 
to us the true extent of their skill as beaux and summer 
gentlemen in waiting. As I looked through the windows 
at those outside and contrasted them with those within 
and now waiting on us, I was struck with the difference, 
class for class, between the girl who chooses to work 
and the girl of the same station practically who would 
rather do something else. The girls outside were of the 
gum-chewing, typewriter brand of summer siren, decked 
in white and blue dresses of the most feathery, flouncy 



212 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

character, and sport coats or jackets in broad, heavy 
stripes, one blacic and white, another orange and blue, 
and the usual ribbon in their hair. They seemed to me 
to be obsessed by the idea of being summery and non- 
chalant and sporty and preternaturally gay — indeed, all 
the things which the Sunday newspaper summer girl 
should be — a most amazing concoction at best, and purely 
a reflection or Imitation of the vagrant thoughts of others 
— copies, marsh fire. Incidentally it struck me that in 
the very value of things they were destined to be nothing 
more than the toys and playthings of men — such men as 
they might be able to attract — not very important, per- 
haps, but as vigorous and inconsequential as themselves. 
On the other hand, those on the inside were so much more 
attractive because they lacked the cunning or silly so- 
phistication of these others and because, by the very 
chemistry of their being, apparently, they were drawn to 
routine motherhood, legitimate or otherwise. 

Personally I am by no means a conventionalist. I 
have never been able to decide which earthly state is 
best. All life Is good, all life, to the Individual who is 
enjoying himself and to the Creator of all things. The 
sting of existence is the great thing — the sensory sting, 
not its vocal theories — but that shuts out the religionist 
and the moralist and they will damn me forever. But 
still I so believe. Those girls outside, and for all their 
fineness and fripperies, were dull; whereas, those inside 
(some of them anyhow) had a dreamy, placid attractive- 
ness which needed no particular smartness of speech or 
clothing to set them off. One of them, the one who 
waited on us, was a veritable Tess, large, placid, sensuous, 
unconsciously seductive. Many of the others seemed of a 
life they could not master but only gaze after. Where are 
the sensible males to see them, I thought. How is it that 
they escape while those others flaunt their dizzy gauds? 
But I soon consoled myself with the thought that they 
would not escape — for long. The strong male knows 
the real woman. Over and above ornament is the chemic 



THE GAY LIFE OF THE LAKE SHORE 213 

attraction which laughs at ornament. I could see how 
the waitresses might fare better in love than the others. 

But outside were the two youths and their maids wait- 
ing for us and we were intensely interested and as genial 
and companionable as might be. One of these girls was 
dark, svelte, languorous, rouged — a veritable siren of 
the modern moving picture school — or rather a copy 
of a siren. The other was younger, blonde, less made- 
up-ish, but so shallow. Dear, kind heaven, how shallow 
some people really are! And their clothes! 

The conversation going on between them, for our 
benefit largely, was a thing to rejoice in or weep over, 
as you will. It was a hodge-podge of shallow humor 
and innuendo, the innuendo that conceals references to 
sex and brings smiles of understanding to the lips of the 
initiated. 

"Lelah here is some girl, I'd have you know." This 
from the taller of the two summer men, who was feel- 
ing of her arm famiharly. 

"How do you know?" This from Lelah, with a quiz-- 
zical, evasive smile. 

"Don't I?" 

"Do you?" 

"Well, you ought to know." 

"I notice that you have to ask." 

Or this other gem from the two men: 

"Ella has nice shoes on today." 

"That isn't all Ella has on, is it?" 

"Well, not quite. She has a pretty smile." 

I gathered from the many things thus said, and the 
way the girls were parading up and down in all direc- 
tions in their very pronounced costumes, that if sex were 
not freely indulged in here, the beholding of it with the. 
eyes and the formulation of it in thought and appearance 
were great factors in the daily life and charm of the 
place. There are ways and ways for the natural tendency 
of the world to show itself. The flaunting of desire, in 
Its various aspects, is an old process. It was so being 
flaunted here. 



CHAPTER XXVII 

A SUMMER STORM AND SOME COMMENTS ON THE PICTURE 

POSTCARD 

Shortly after leaving Ashtabula we ran into a storm 
— one of those fine, windy, dusty, tree-groaning rains 
that come up simply and magnificently and make you feel 
that you are going to be blown into kingdom come and 
struck by lightning en route. As we sped through great 
aisles of trees and through little towns all bare to our 
view through their open doors, as though they had not 
a thing to conceal or a marauder to fear, the wind be- 
gan to rise and the trees to swish and whistle, and by the 
glare of our own powerful headlight we saw clouds of 
dust rolling toward us. A few heavy drops of water hit 
my head and face and someone, I suppose Franklin (let 
me put all the blame I can on him in this story — what 
else are hosts for?), suggested that we put up the top. 

Now I, for one, vote automobile tops a nuisance. 
They are a crime, really. Here was a fine electric storm, 
with the heavens torn with great poles of light and the 
woods and the fields and distant little cottages revealed 
every few seconds with startling definiteness — and we 
had to put up the top. Why? Well, there were bags 
and coats and a camera and I know not what else, and 
these things had to be protected. My own glasses began 
to drip and my chin and my hair were very wet. So 
up went the top. 

But, worse than that, the sides had to go up, for now 
the wind was driving the rain sidewise and we were all 
getting soaked anyhow — so up went the sides. Then, 
thus protected and with all the real beauty of the night 
shut out, we rattled along, I pressing my nose to the 
Isinglass windows and wishing that I might see it all. I 

214 



A SUMMER STORM 215 

cursed God and man and close, stuffy automobiles. I 
snuggled down in my corner and began to dream again 
when presently, say one hour later, or two or three (it 
must have been two or three, now that I think of it), 
another enormous bridge such as that we had seen at 
Nicholsen, Pennsylvania, hove into view, down a curve 
which our lamps illuminated with amazing clearness. 

"Whoa !" I called to Speed, as though he were a horse. 

"You're right," commented Franklin, without further 
observation on my part. "That is interesting, isn't it?" 
Though it was still raining, we opened those storm cur- 
tains and clambered out, walking on ahead of the car to 
stand and look at it. As we did a train came from some- 
where — a long, brightly lighted passenger train — and 
sped over it as noiselessly as if it had been on solid 
ground. A large arch rose before us, an enormous thing, 
with another following in the distance and bridging a 
stream. 

"Think I'd better sketch that?" queried Franklin. 

"Indeed I do," I replied, "if it interests you. It's 
wonderful to me." 

We wandered on down the curve and under it, through 
a great arch. A second bridge came into view — this time 
of iron — the one over which our road ran, and beyond 
that a third, of iron or steel also, much higher than either 
of the others. This last was a trolley bridge, and as 
we stood here a trolley car approached and sped over 
it. At the same time another train glided over the great 
stone arch. 

"What is this — Bridge Centre?" I inquired. 

"Transportationsburg," replied Franklin. "Can't you 
see?" 

We fell to discussing lights and shadows and the best 
angle at which to make the drawing. 

But there was no umbrella between us — useless things, 
umbrellas — and so I had to lay my mackintosh on Frank- 
lin's head and hold it out in front of him like an awn- 
ing, while he peered under it and sketched and I played 
porch posts. Sketching so, we talked of the great walls 



2i6 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

of Europe — Spain and Italy — old Roman walls — and 
how these new things being built here in this fashion must 
endure — long after we were gone — and leave traces of 
what a wonderful nation we were, we Americans^ 
(German-Americans, Austro-Americans, Greek-Ameri- 
cans, Italian-Americans, French-Americans, English- 
Americans, Hindu-Americans). 

"Just think, Franklin," I chortled, "you and I may be 
remembered for thousands and thousands of years as 
having stood here tonight and sketched this very bridge." 

"Uh, huh," he commented. 

"It may be written that 'In A. D. 1915, Theodore 
Dreiser, accompanied by one Franklin Booth, an artist, 
visited the site of this bridge, which was then In pcrfccc 
condition, and made a sketch of it, preserved now In 
that famous volume entitled "A Hoosier Holiday," by 
Theodore Dreiser.' " 

"You know how to advertise your own wares, don't 
you?" he said. "Who made the sketch?" 

"Why, Franklin Booth, of course." 

"But you didn't say so." 

"Why didn't I?" 

"Because you didn't." 

"Oh, well. We'll correct all little errors like that in 
the proof. You'll be safe enough." 

"Will I?" 

"Surely you will." 

"Well, in that case I'll finish the sketch. For a mo- 
ment I thought I wouldn't. But now that I'm sure to be 
preserved for posterity " 

He went scratching on. 

The lights we saw ahead of us were those of Palnes- 
ville, Ohio, another manufacturing and trans-shipping 
city like Conneaut and Ashtabula, and this was the Grand 
River we were crossing, a rather modest stream, it 
seemed to me, for so large a name. (I learned its 
title from a picture postcard later In the city.) 

One should be impressed with the development of this 



A SUMMER STORM 217 

picture postcard business in American towns. What is 
there to photograph, you might ask, of any of these 
places, large or small? Well, waterworks and soldiers' 
monuments and the residences of principal citizens, and 
so on and so forth. When I was a boy in Warsaw and 
earlier in Evansville and Sullivan, there wasn't a single 
picture postcard of this kind — only those highly colored 
"panoramas" or group views of the principal cities, like 
New York and Chicago, which sold for a quarter or at 
least fifteen cents. Of the smaller towns there was noth- 
ing, literally nothing. No small American town of that 
date would have presumed to suppose that it had any- 
thing of interest to photograph, yet on this trip there 
was scarcely a village that did not contain a rack some- 
where of local views, if no more than of clouds and rills 
and cattle standing in water near an old bridge. By 
hunting out the leading drug store first, we could almost 
invariably discover all there was to know about a town 
in a scenic way, or nearly all. It was most gratifying. 

This change in the number and character of our na- 
tional facilities as they affect the very small towns had 
been impressing me all the way. When I was from eight 
to sixteen years of age, there was not a telephone or a 
trolley car or an ice cream soda fountain (in the mod- 
ern sense of that treasure) or a roller-skating rink or a 
roller skate or a bicycle, or an automobile or phono- 
graph, or a moving picture theatre, or indeed anything 
like the number of interesting and new things we have 
now — flying machines and submarines, for instance. It 
is true that just about that time — 1 880-1 886 — when I 
left Warsaw for the world outside, I was beginning 
to encounter the first or some solitary examples of these 
things. Thus the first picture postcards I ever found 
were in Chicago in 1896 or thereabouts, several years 
after I had visited the principal eastern cities, and I 
would have seen them if there had been any. The first 
electric light I ever saw was in Evansville, Indiana, in 
1882, where to my youthful delight and amazement they 
were erecting tall, thin skeleton towers of steel, not less 



2i8 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

than one hundred and twentyfive feet high, and only 
about four feet in diameter — (you may still see them 
in Fort Wayne, Indiana) — and carrying four arc lights 
each at the top. Fifty such towers were supposed to 
light the whole city of Evansville, a place of between 
forty and fifty thousand, and they did, in a dim, mooney 
way. I remember as a boy of twelve standing in wonder, 
watching them being put up. Evansville seemed such 
a great city to me then. These towers were more in- 
teresting as a spectacle than useful as a lighting sys- 
tem, however, and were subsequently taken down. 

The first telephone I ever saw was one being in- 
stalled in the Central Fire Station at Vincennes, Indiana, 
in 1880 or thereabouts. At the time my mother was 
paying the enforced visit, later to be mentioned, to the 
wife of the captain of this particular institution, a girl 
who had worked for her as a seamstress years before. 
I was no more than eight at the time, and full of a 
natural curiosity, and I remember distinctly staring at 
the peculiar instrument which was being hung on a post 
in the centre of the fire station, and how the various 
firemen and citizens stood about and gaped. There was 
much excitement among the men because of the peculiar 
powers of the strange novelty. I think, from the way 
they stared at it, while Frank Bellett, the Captain, first 
talked through it to some other office in the little city, 
they felt there must be something spooky about it — some 
legerdemain by which the person talking at the other 
end made himself small and came along the wire, or 
that there was some sprite with a voice inside the box 
which as an intermediary did all the talking for both 
parties. I know I felt that there must be some such 
supernatural arrangement about it, and for this reason 
I too looked with awe and wonder. As days passed, 
however, and considerable talking was done through it, 
and my own mother, putting the receiver to her ear, lis- 
tened while her friend, the wife, called from somewhere 
outside, my awe, if not the wonder, wore off. For years, 
though, perhaps because I never used one until nearly 



A SUMMER STORM 219 

ten years later, the mystic character of the thing stuck 
in my mind. 

It was much the same thing with the trolley car and 
the roller skate and the bicycle. I never saw a trolley 
car until I was seventeen or eighteen years of age, and 
then only an experimental one conducted on a mile of 
track laid on North Avenue, Chicago, by the late Charles 
T. Yerkes, at that time the principal traction magnate of 
Chicago. He was endeavoring to find out whether the 
underground trolley was a feasible thing for use in Chi- 
cago or not and had laid a short experimental section, or 
had had it laid for him. I was greatly astonished, when 
I first saw it, to think it would go without any visible 
means of propulsion — and that in spite of the fact that I 
had already seen the second cable road built in America 
running in State Street, Chicago, as early as 1884. At 
that time, our family having come to Chicago for the 
summer, I ran an errand for a West Madison Street 
confectioner which took me to a candy manufacturer's 
basement in State Street. There, through a window in 
the front of the store, underground, I saw great engines 
going, and a cable on wheels spinning by. Every now 
and then the grip of a car would appear and disappear 
past an opening under the track, which was here. It 
was most astonishing, and gave me a sense of vast inex- 
plicable mystery which is just as lively today as it ever 
was, and as warranted. 

In regard to the bicycle, the first one I ever saw was 
in Warsaw in 1884 — a high-wheeled one, not a safety! — 
and the first pair of roller skates I ever saw was in the 
same place in 1885, when some adventurous amusement 
provider came there and opened a roller-skating parlor. 
It was a great craze for a while, and my brother Ed 
became an expert, though I never learned. There were 
various storms in our family over the fact that he was 
so eager for it, staying out late and running away, and 
because my mother, sympathetic soul, aided and abetted 
him, so keen was her sympathy with childhood and play, 
whereas my father, stern disciplinarian that he was, ob- 



220 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

jected. Often have I seen Ed hanging about my mother's 
skirts, and she, distressed and puzzled, finally giving him 
a quarter out of her hard earned store to enjoy himself. 
He ought certainly to have the most tender memories 
of her. 

The first ice cream soda fountain I ever saw, or the 
first ice cream soda I ever tasted, was served to me in 
Warsaw, Indiana, at the corner book store, opposite the 
courthouse, subsequently destroyed. That was in 1885. 
It was called to my attention by a boy named Judson 
Morris, whose father owned the store, and it served as 
an introduction and a basis for future friendship, our 
family having newly moved to Warsaw. It had just 
succeeded a drink known as the milk shake, which had 
attained great popularity everywhere the preceding year. 
But ice cream soda I By my troth, how pale and watery 
milk shake seemed in comparison I I fell, a giddy victim, 
and have never since recovered myself or become as en- 
thusiastic over any other beverage. 

And so I could continue — leaving Franklin and Speed 
waiting patiently in Painesville, Ohio, in the rain, but I 
won't. We hastened in after Franklin made his sketch, 
and, owing to some extraordinary rush of business which 
had filled the principal hotel, were compelled to take 
refuge in a rickety barn of a house known as "The An- 
nex" — an annex to this other and much better one. 



CHAPTER XXVIII 

IN CLEVELAND 

The next morning we set off under grey, lowery clouds, 
over the shore road to Cleveland, which proved better 
than that between Erie and Painesville, having no breaks 
and being as smooth as a table. At one place we had 
to stop in an oatlield where the grain had been newly cut 
and shocked, to see if we could still jump over the shocks 
as in days of yore, this being a true test, according to 
Speed, as to whether one was in a fit condition. to live 
eighty years, and also whether one had ever been a true 
fanner. Franklin and Speed leaped over the shocks with 
ease, Franklin's coat skirts flying out behind in a most 
bird-like manner, and Speed's legs and arms taking most 
peculiar angles. When it came my turn to do it, I funked 
miserably. Actually, I failed so badly that I felt very 
much distressed, being haunted for miles by the thought 
of increasing age and impending death, for once I was 
fairly athletic and could run three miles at a steady jog 
and not feel it. But now — well now, whenever I reached 
the jumping point I couldn't make it. My feet refused 
to leave the ground. I felt heavy. 

Alas I Alas! 

And then we had to pause and look at the lake, which 
because of the storm the night before and the stiff 
northwest wind blowing this morning, offered a fine 
tumbling spectacle. As to dignity and impressiveness I 
could see no difference between this lake shore and most 
of the best sea beaches which I have seen elsewhere. The 
waves were long and dark and foamy, rolling in, from a 
long distance out, with a thump and a roar which was as 
fierce as that of any sea. The beach was of smooth, grey 
sand, with occasional piles of driftwood scattered along 



222 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

its length, and twisted and tortured trees hanging over 
the banks of the highland above. In the distance we 
could see the faint outlines of the city of Cleveland, a 
penciled blur, and over it a cloud of dark smoke, the 
customary banner of our manufacturing world. I de- 
cided that here would be a dehghtful place to set up a 
writing shack or a studio, transferring all my effects from 
my various other dream homes, and spending my latter 
days. I should have been a carpenter and builder, I 
think. It would save me money constructing houses for 
myself. 

In the suburbs of Cleveland were being built the many 
comfortable homes of those who could afford this hand- 
some land facing the lake. Hundreds of cottages we 
passed were done in the newer moods of our American 
architects, and some of them were quite free of the hor- 
rible banalities to which the American country architect 
seems addicted. There were homes of real taste, with 
gardens arranged with a sense of their architectural value 
and trees and shrubs which enhanced their beauty. Here, 
as I could tell by my nerves, all the ethical and social 
conventions of the middle class American and the middle 
West were being practised, or at least preached. Right 
was as plain as the nose on your face; truth as definite 
a thing as the box hedges and macadam roads which sur- 
rounded them; virtue a chill and even frozen maid. If 
I had had the implements I would have tacked up a sign 
reading "Non-conformists beware I Detour south 
through factory regions." 

As we drew nearer Cleveland, this same atmosphere 
continued, only becoming more dense. Houses, instead 
of being five hundred feet apart and set in impressive 
and exclusive spaces, were one hundred feet apart or less. 
They were smartly suburban and ultra-respectable and 
refined. The most imposing of churches began to ap- 
pear — I never saw finer — and schools and heavily tree- 
shaded streets. Presently we ran into Euclid Avenue, an 
amazingly long and wide street, once Cleveland's pride 
and the centre of all her wealthy and fashionable life. 







4 N^' 






>lr*' 







,W,J« SV'*-:. 



IN CLEVELAND 223 

but now threaded by a new double tracked trolley line 
and fallen on lesser, if not absolutely evil, days. This 
street was once the home, and still may be for all I know 
(his immortal residence was pointed out to us by a police- 
man) , of the sacrosanct John D. Rockefeller. Yes, in his 
earlier and poorer years, when he was worth only from 
seventy to eighty millions, he lived here, and the house 
seemed to me, as I looked at it this morning, actually to 
reflect all the stodgy conservatism with which he is 
credited. It was not smart — what rich American's house 
of forty or fifty years ago ever is? — but it was solid and 
impressive and cold. Yes, cold is the word, — a large, 
roomy, silent thing of grey stone, with a wide smooth 
lawn at least a hundred feet wide spreading before it, and 
houses of its same character flanking it on either hand. 
Here lived John D. and plotted, no doubt, and from 
here he issued to those local religious meetings and church 
socials for which he is so famous. And no doubt some 
one or more of the heavy chambers of this house con- 
sumed in their spaciousness the soft, smooth words which 
meant wealth or poverty to many an oil man or competi- 
tor or railroad manipulator whose rates were subse- 
quently undermined. For John D. knew how to outplot 
the best of them. As an American I forgive him for out- 
plotting the rest of the world. As an individual, well, if 
he weren't intellectually and artistically so dull I could 
forgive him everything. 

"What is this?" I queried of Franklin. "Surely 
Euclid Avenue isn't being given over to trade, is it? See 
that drug store there, built in front of an old home — and 
that garage tacked on to that mansion — impossible!" 

But so it was. These great old mansions set back in 
their tremendous spaces of lawn were seeing the very 
last of their former glory. The business heart of the 
city was apparently overtaking them, and these car tracks 
were so new I was uncertain whether they were being 
put down or taken up. 

I hailed a policeman. 

"Are these tracks being removed or put in?" 



224 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

"Put in," he replied. "They've just finished a long 
fight here. The rich people didn't want it, but the people 
won. Tom Johnson began fighting for this years ago." 

Tom Johnson! What an odd sense of the passing of 
all things the name gave me. Between 1895 and 1910 
his name was on nearly everyone's tongue. How he was 
hated by the growing rich! In the face of the upspring- 
ing horde of financial buccaneers of that time — Hanna, 
Rockefeller, Morgan, Harriman, Ryan — he stood out as 
a kind of tribune of the people. He had made money 
in business, and by much the same methods as every other 
man, taking and keeping, but now he declared himself 
desirous of seeing something done for the people — of 
doing something — and so he fought for three cent fares 
in Cleveland, to be extended, afterwards, everywhere, I 
suppose. 

Don't smile, dear reader. I know it sounds like a joke. 
In the face of the steady settling of all powers and privi- 
leges in America in the hands of a powerful oligarchy, 
the richest and most glittering the world has ever seen, 
the feeble dreamings of an idealist, and a but slightly 
equipped one at that, are foolish; but then, there is some- 
thing poetic about it, just the same, quite as there is about 
all the other poets and dreamers the world has ever 
known. We always want to help the mass, we idealists, 
at first. We look about and see human beings like our- 
selves, struggling, complaining, dying, pinching along with 
little or nothing, and our first thought is that some one 
human being or some group of beings is responsible, that 
nature has designed all to have plenty, and that all we 
have to do is to clear away the greed of a few individuals 
who stand between man and nature, and presto, all is well 
again. I used to feel that way and do yet, at times. I 
should hate to think it was all over with America and its 
lovely morning dreams. 

And it's fine poetry, whether it will work or not. It 
fits in with the ideas of all prophets and reformers since 
the world began. Think of Henry George, that lovely 
soul, dying in New York in a cheap hotel, fighting the 



IN CLEVELAND 225 

battle of a labor party — he, the dreamer of "Progress 
and Poverty." And Doctor (The Reverend Father) 
McGlynn, declaring that some day we would have an 
American Pope strolling down Broadway under a silk 
hat and being thoroughly social and helpful and demo- 
:ratic; and then being excommunicated from the church 
for it or silenced — which was it? And W. J. Bryan, 
with his long hair and his perfect voice (that moving, 
bell-lil<e voice), wishing to solve all the ills of man by 
sixteen to one — the double standard of gold and silver; 
and John P. Altgeld, high, clear, dreamy soul, with his 
blue eyes and his sympathy for the betrayed anarchists 
and the poor; and "Potato" Pingree, as they used to call 
him, once governor of Michigan, who wanted all idle 
land in Detroit and elsewhere turned over to the deserv- 
ing poor in order that they might grow potatoes or some- 
thing else on it. And Henry Ford with his "peace ship" 
and his minimum of five dollars a day for every man, and 
Hart, Schaffner and Marx with their minimum of two 
dollars for every little seamstress and poorest floor 
svasher. What does it all mean? 

I'll tell you. 

It means a sense of equilibrium, or the disturbance of 
t. Contrasts remain forever, — vast differences in brain, 
;n heart, in opportunity, in everything; but now and then 
tvhen the contrasts become too sharp or are too closely 
juxtaposed, up rises some tender spirit — Isaiah, or Jere- 
-niah, or Christ, or St. Francis, or John Huss, or Savan- 
irola, or Robert Owen, or John Brown, or Abraham Lin- 
:oln, or William Lloyd Garrison, or Walt Whitman, or 
Lloyd George, or Henry Ford, or John P. Altgeld, or 
VV. J. Bryan — and begins to cry "Ho! Assyrian" or its 
equivalent. It is wonderful. It is positively beautiful 
and thrilling, this love of balance and "fair play" in 
nature. These men are not always thinking of them- 
selves, you may depend on it. It is inherent in the 
scheme of things, just as are high mountains and deep 
valleys, but oh, those who have the sense of it — those 
dreamers and poets and seekers after the ideal! 



226 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

"They can kill my body but not what I stand for." — John 
Brown. 

"Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy." — Christ. 

"Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels and 
have not charity, I am become as sounding brass or a tinkling 
cymbal."— 5^ Paul. 

"Oh, poorest Jesus, the grace I beg of Thee is to bestow on me 
the grace of the highest poverty." — St. Francis. 

"I with my barbaric yawp, yawping over the roofs of the world." 
— H^alt Whitman. 

Are things to be made right by law? I will admit that 
some wide and sweeping differences can be eliminated. 
Tyrants can occasionally be pulled down and humani- 
tarians elevated for the time being. Yes, yes. A rough 
equation can be struck always, and it is something of 
that of which these men were dreaming. But even so, 
in the face of all the physical, temperamental, spiritual, 
intellectual, to say nothing of climatic and planetary dif- 
ferences, what matter? Will law save an idiot or undo 
a Shelley or a Caesar? Will law pull down the sun and 
set the moon in its place? My masters, we can only 
sympathize at times where we cannot possibly act, — and 
we can act and aid where we cannot cure. But of a uni- 
versal panacea there is only a dream — or so I feel. Yet 
it is because we can and do dream — and must, at times — 
and because of our dreams and the fact that they must 
so often be shattered, that we have art and the joy of 
this thing called Life. Without contrast there is no 
life. And without dreams there might not be any alter- 
ation in these too sharp contrasts. But where would our 
dreams be, I ask you — or the need of them — if all of that 
of which we are compelled to dream and seek in an 
agony of sweat and despair were present and we did not 
need to dream? Then what? 

But let us away with abstrusities. Let us sing over 
Life as it is. These tall, poetic souls — are they not beau- 
tiful? And would you not have it so that they may 
appear? 

In riding up this same street I was on familiar ground, 



IN CLEVELAND 227 

for here, twentytwo years before, in that same raw spring 
which took me to Buffalo, I stopped, looking for work— 
and found some, of sorts. I connected myself for a very 
little while (a week or two) with the Sunday issue of the 
Flam Dealer and did a few specials, trying to prove to 
the incumbent of the high office of Sunday editor that I 
was a remarkable man. He did not see it— or me He 
commented once that my work was too lofty in tone, that 
1 loved to rhapsodize too much. I know he was right 
Nevertheless, the second city afterwards (Pittsburg), 
like the others from which I had just come (Toledo, St 
Louis, and Chicago) , liked me passing well. But my am- 
bition did not run to a permanent position in Cleveland 
anyhow. 

Just the same, and what was of interest to me this 
morning as I rode into Cleveland, was that here, after a 
most wonderful ramble east from St. Louis, I had arrived 
quite as in Buffalo, spiritually very hungry and lorn. As 
1 look back on it now I know that I must have been a 
very peculiar youth, for nothing I could find or do con- 
tented me for so much as an hour. I had achieved a 
considerable newspaper success in St. Louis, but had 
dropped It as being meaningless; and because of a silly 
dream about running a country newspaper (which I shall 
narrate later) in a town called Grand Rapids, Ohio, I 
had a chance to take over said country paper, but when 
1 looked It over and pictured to myself what the local life 
would be, I fled in horror. In Toledo I encountered a 
poet and an enthusiast, a youth destined to prove one of 
the most helpful influences in my whole career, with whom 
1 enjoyed a period of intense mental cerebration, yet him 
1 left also, partly because I lacked money and an interest- 
ing future there, but more because I felt restless and 
wanted to see more of the world. 

_ One of my principal trials at this time was that I was 
m love and had left the object of my adoration behind 
me, and was not sure that I would ever earn enough 
money to go and fetch her,— so uncertain were my talents 
and my opportunities in my own eyes. 



228 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

And like Buffalo, which came after Cleveland in my 
experience, this city seemed dirty and raw and black, 
but forceful. America was in the furnace stage of its 
existence. Everything was in the making, — fortunes, art, 
its social and commercial life, everything. _ The most as- 
tonishing thing in It was its rich men, their houses, fac- 
tories, institutions of commerce and pleasure. Nothmg 
else had occurred. There was nothing to see but busi- 
ness and a few hotels, — one, really — and theatres. I 
remember looking at a great soldiers' monument (it is 
still here in the principal square) and wondering why so 
large a monument. I do not recall that any man of Cleve- 
land particularly distinguished himself in the Civil War. 

But the one thing that struck me as of greatest import 
In those days was Euclid Avenue with Its large houses 
and lawns which are now so close to the business heart, 
and Its rich men, John D. Rockefeller and Mark Hanna 
and Henry M. Flagler and Tom Johnson. Rockefeller 
had just given millions and millions to revivify the almost 
defunct University of Chicago, then a small Baptist 
College, to say nothing of being hailed (newly then) 
as the richest man in America. All of these people were 
living here In Euclid Avenue, and I looked up their houses 
and all the other places of Interest, envying the rich and 
wishing that I was famous or a member of a wealthy 
family, and that I might meet some one of the beautiful 
girls I Imagined I saw here and have her fall in love with 

me. 

Tra, la! Tra, la! There's nothing like being a pas- 
sionate, romantic dunce if you want to taste this wine of 
wizardry which is life. I was and I did. . . . 



CHAPTER XXIX 

THE FLAT LANDS OF OHIO 

But now Cleveland by no means moved me as it once 
had. Not that there was anything wrong with Cleveland.. 
The change was in me, no doubt — a septicemia which 
malves things look different in middle life. We break- 
fasted at a rather attractive looking restaurant which 
graced a very lively outlying corner, where a most stately 
and perfect featured young woman cashier claimed our 
almost undivided attention. ( Hail, Eros ! ) And then we 
sped on to the Hollenden, an hotel which I recalled as 
being the best in my day, to consult the Cleveland Auto- 
mobile Club as to the condition of the roads west. 

Sitting before this hotel in our car, under a grey sky 
and with the wind whipping about rather chilly for an 
August morning, I was reminded of other days spent in 
this same hotel, not as a guest but as a youthful chair 
warmer between such hours as I was not working on the 
Cleveland Plain Dealer or walking the streets of the city, 
or sleeping in the very dull room I had engaged in a very 
dingy and smoky looking old house. Why didn't I get 
a better place? Well, my uncertainty as to whether I 
should long remain in Cleveland was very great. This 
house was convenient to the business heart, the rooms 
were clean, and from the several windows on the second 
floor I could see a wide sweep of the lake, with its 
white caps and gulls and ships, and closer at hand the 
imposing buildings of the city. It was a great spectacle, 
and I was somewhat of a recluse and fonder of spec- 
tacles than I was of people. 

But the Hollenden, which was then the principal hotel 
of the city and centre of all the extravagant transient 
life of the time, appealed to me as a convenient method 

229 



230 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

of obtaining comfort of sorts without any expense. News- 
paper men have a habit of making themselves at home 
almost anywhere. Their kaleidoscopic contact with the 
rough facts of life, and their commercial compulsion to 
go, do, see, under all circumstances and at all hours, soon 
robs them of that nervous fear or awe which possesses 
less sophisticated souls. When you are sent in the morn- 
ing to attend a wedding or a fire, at noon to interview a 
celebrity or describe a trial, and at night to report an ex- 
plosion, a political meeting or a murder, you soon lose 
all that sense of unwelcomed intrusion which restrains the 
average citizen. Celebrities become mere people. 
Gorgeous functions melt into commonplace affairs, no 
better than any other function that has been or will be 
again; an hotel like this is little more than a mere loung- 
ing place to the itinerant scribe, to the comforts of which 
as a representative of the press he is entitled. 

If not awe or mystery, then certainly nervous anticipa- 
tion attaches to the movements and personality of nearly 
all reporters. At least it does in my case. To this day, 
though I have been one in my time, I stand in fearot 
them. I never know what to expect, what scarifying 
question they are going to hurtle at me, or what cold, 
examining eyes are going to strip me to the bone— eyes 
that represent brains so shrewd and merciless that one 
wonders why they do not startle the world long before 

they usually do. ... ^, 

In those days this hotel was the most luxurious in Cleve- 
land, and here, between hours, because it was cold and 
I was lonely, I came to sit and stare out at all the passing 
throng, vigorous and active enough to entertain anyone. 
It was a brisk life that Cleveland presented, and young. 
The great question with me always was, how did people 
come to be, in the first place? What were the underlying , 
laws of our being? How did it come that human bemgs 
could separate themselves from cosmic solidarity and 
navigate alone? Why did we all have much the same 
tastes, appetites, desires? Why should two billion people 
on earth have two feet, two eyes, two hands? The fact 



THE FLAT LANDS OF OHIO 231 

that Darwin had already set forward his facts as to evolu- 
tion did not clear things up for me at all. I wanted to 
know who started the thing evolving, and why. And so 
I loved to sit about in places like this where I could see 
people and think about it. 

Incidentally I wanted to think about government and 
the growth of cities and the value and charm of different 
professions, and whether my own somewhat enforced 
profession (since I had no cunning, apparently, for any- 
thing else) was to be of any value to me. I was just at 
the age when the enjoyment of my life and strength 
seemed the most important thing in the world. I wanted 
to live, to have money, to be somebody, to meet and 
enjoy the companionship of interesting and well placed 
people, to seem to be better than I was. While I by no 
means condemned those above or beneath, nor ignored 
the claims of any individual or element to fair and courte- 
ous treatment, still, materialist that I was, I wanted to 
share on equal terms with the best, in all the more and 
most exclusive doings and beings. The fact that the 
world (in part) was busy about feasts and pleasures, that 
there were drawingrooms lighted for receptions, dining- 
rooms for dinner, ballrooms for dancing, and that I was 
nowhere included, was an aching thorn. I used to stroll 
about where theatres were just receiving their influx of 
evening patrons or where some function of note was being 
held, and stare with avid eyes at the preparations. I 
felt lone and lorn. A rather weak and profitless tendency, 
say you ? Quite so ; I admit it. It interests me now quite 
as much as it possibly could you. I am now writing of 
myself not as I am, but as I was. 

We gained the information that the best road to Fort 
Wayne was not via the lake shore, as we wished, but 
through a town called Elyrla and Vermilion, and so 
on through various Ohio towns to the Indiana line. I 
did not favor that at all. I argued that we should go 
by the lake anyhow, but somehow we started for Elyria 
— or "Delirious," as we called it. 



232 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

In leaving Cleveland I urged Franklin to visit the re- 
gion where originally stood the house in which I had 
stopped, and to my surprise I found the place entirely 
done over — cleared of all the old tracks, houses and 
docks which, from the formal point of view, once marred 
the waterfront. In their stead were several stately mu- 
nicipal huildings facing the wide bosom of the lake and 
surrounded by great spaces of smooth grass. It was 
very imposing. So the spot I had chosen as most inter- 
esting to me had become the civic centre of the city ! This 
flattered me not a little. 

But Elyria and Vermilion — what about them? 

Nothing. Just Ohio towns. 

At Elyria we found a stream which had been diverted 
and made to run a turbine engine in order that the town 
might have light; but it was discovered afterward that 
there wasn't enough water power after all to supply the 
town, and so extra light had to be bought and paid for. 
The works were very picturesque — a deep, craggy cave, 
at the bottom of which was the turbine engine room, cut 
out of the solid rock apparently, the water pouring down 
through it. I thought what a delightful place it was for 
the town boys to play! 

But this inland country was really too dreary. All the 
uncomfortable experiences of my early youth began to 
come back as I viewed these small cottages set in endless 
spaces of flat land, with nothing but scrubby trees, wire 
fences and occasionally desolately small and bare white 
churches to vary the landscape. "What a life!" I kept 
saying to myself. "What a life!" And I still say it, 
"What a life !" It would require endless friends to make 
such a landscape endurable. 

Before reaching the lake again, we traversed about 
twenty miles of a region that seemed to me must be de- 
voted to the chicken raising business, we saw so many of 
them. In one place we encountered a huge natural amphi- 
theatre or depression which could easily have been turned 
into a large lake — the same hollowed out by a stream 
known as the Vermilion River. In another we came to 



THE FLAT LANDS OF OHIO 233 

a fine threshing scene with all the implements for the 
work in full motion — a scene so attractive that we stopped 
and loafed a while, inquiring as to the rewards of farm- 
ing in this region. In still another place we passed a 
small river pleasure ground, a boating and bathing place 
which was probably patronized by the villagers here- 
about. It suggested all sorts of sweet, simple summer 
romances. 

Then Vermilion came into view with a Chautauqua 
meeting announced as "coming soon," and a cove with 
a lighthouse and pretty launches and sailboats at anchor. 
Speed announced that if we were going to idle here, as 
usual, he would stop at the first garage and get oil and 
effect certain repairs, and there we left him, happy at his 
task, his body under the machine, while we walked on 
into the heart of the village. It being noontime, the hope 
of finding a restaurant lured us, as well as that possibil- 
ity of seeing something different and interesting which 
the sight of every new town held out, at least to me. 
Here we had lunch then, and quite a good one too, with 
a piece of cherry pie thrown in for good measure, if you 
please, and then because the restaurant was conducted 
by a Japanese by the name of B. Kagi, and because the 
girl who waited on us looked like an Americanized 
product of the Flowery Kingdom, I asked her if she was 
Japanese. 

I never got a blacker look in my life. For a moment 
her dark eyes seemed to shoot sparks. Her whole de- 
meanor, which hitherto had been pleasant and helpful, 
changed to one of deadly opposition. "Certainly not," 
she replied with a sting in her voice, and I saw clearly 
that I had made a most painful faux pas. I felt called 
upon to explain or apologize to Franklin, who heard and 
saw it all. He was most helpful. 

"I suppose," he commented, "in these small middle 
West towns it is declasse to be Japanese. They don't dis- 
criminate much between Japanese and Chinese. To sug- 
gest anything like that probably hurts her feelings dread- 



234 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

fully. If people here discover it, it lowers her in their 
eyes, or that is what she thinks." 

"But she looks Japanese to you, doesn't she?" I 
queried, humbly. 

"Not very, no." 

I looked again and it semed very obvious. Back in the 
kitchen was occasionally visible B. Kagi, and it seemed to 
me even then that the girl looked like him. However, the 
air was so frigid from then on that I scarcely enjoyed my 
meal. And to confound me, as it were, several towns- 
people came in and my supposedly purely Japanese maid 
talked in the normal middle West fashion, even to a kind 
of a nasal intonation which we all have. Obviously she 
was American born and raised in this region. "But why 
the likeness?" I kept saying to myself in my worst and 
most suspicious manner. And then I began to build up 
a kind of fictional background for her, with this B. Kagi 
as her real, but for reasons of policy, concealed father, 
and so on and so forth, until I had quite a short story 
in mind. But I don't suppose I'll ever come to the pleas- 
ure of writing it. 



CHAPTER XXX 

OSTEND PURGED OF SIN 

At Vermilion the sun suddenly burst forth once more, 
clear and warm from a blanket of grey, and the whole 
world looked different and much more alluring. Speed 
arrived with the car just when we had finished luncheon, 
and we had the pleasure of sitting outside and feeling 
thoroughly warm and gay while he ate. Betimes Frank- 
lin commented on the probable character of the life in a 
community like this. He was of the conviction that it 
never rose above a certain dead level of mediocrity — 
however charming and grateful the same might be as 
life — and that all the ideas of all concerned ran to simple 
duties and in grooves of amusing, if not deadly preju- 
dice; which was entirely satisfactory, so long as they did 
not interfere with or destroy your life. He was con- 
vinced that there was this narrow, solemn prejudice which 
made all life a sham, or a kind of rural show piece, in 
which all played a prescribed part, some thinking one 
thing, perhaps, and secretly conforming to it as much 
as possible, while publicly professing another and con- 
forming to that, publicly, or, as is the case with the ma- 
jority, actually believing in and conforming to life as 
they found it here. I know there were many such in 
the home communities in which I was brought up. Frank- 
lin was not one to charge general and widespread hy- 
pocrisy, as do some, but rather to sympathize with and 
appreciate the simple beliefs, tastes, and appetites of all 
concerned. 

"Now take those four town loafers sitting over there 
on that bin in front of that store," he commented, apropos 
of four old cronies who had come out to sun themselves. 
"They haven't a single thing in their minds above petty 

235 



236 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

little humors which do not seriously affect anyone but 
themselves. They sit and comment and jest and talk 
about people in the town who are doing things, quite as 
four ducks might quack. They haven't a single thing to 
do, not an important ambition. Crime of any kind is 
nearly beyond them." 

Just then a boy came by crying a Cleveland afternoon 
paper. He was calling, "All about the lynching of Leo 
Frank." This was a young Jew who had been arrested 
in Atlanta, Georgia, some months before, charged with 
the very disturbing crime of attempted rape and subse- 
quent murder, the victim being a pretty working girl in 
a factory of which the murderer, socalled, was foreman 
or superintendent. The trick by which the crime was sup- 
posed to have been accomplished, as it was charged, was 
that of causing the girl to stay after work and then, when 
alone, attempting to seduce or force her. In this in- 
stance a struggle seems to have ensued. The girl may 
have fallen and crushed her head against a table, or she 
may have been struck on the head. The man arrested 
denied vigorously that he had anything to do with it. He 
attempted, I believe, to throw the blame on a negro jani- 
tor, or, if not that, he did nothing to aid in clearing him 
of suspicion. And there is the bare possibility that the 
negro did commit the crime, though personally I doubted 
it. When, upon trial, Frank's conviction of murder in 
the first degree followed, a great uproar ensued, Jews and 
other citizens in all parts of the country protested and 
contributed money for a new trial. The case was ap- 
pealed to the supreme court, but without result. Local 
or state sentiment was too strong. It was charged by 
the friends of the condemned man that the trial had been 
grossly unfair, and that Southern opposition to all man- 
ner of sex offenses was so abnormal and peculiar, hav- 
ing a curious relationship to the inversion of the psycho- 
analyst, that no fair trial could be expected in that sec- 
tion. Personally, I had felt that the man should have 
been tried elsewhere because of this very sectional char- 
acteristic, which I had noticed myself. 



OSTEND PURGED OF SIN 237 

It had been charged that a southern mob overawed the 
jury in the very court room m which the case had been 
conducted, that the act of rape had never really been 
proved, that the death had really been accidental as de- 
scribed, that the very suspicious circumstance of the body 
being found in the cellar was due to fear on the part of 
the murderer, whoever he was, of being found out, and 
that the girl had not been brutally slain at all. Neverthe- 
less, when the reigning governor, whose term was about 
to expire, commuted the sentence from death to life im- 
prisonment, he had to leave the state under armed protec- 
tion, and a few weeks later the criminal, if he was one, 
was set upon by a fellow convict in the penitentiary at 
Atlanta and his throat cut. It was assumed that the con- 
vict was employed by the element inimical to Frank at 
the trial. A little later, while he was still in the hospital, 
practically dying from this wound, Frank was taken out 
by a lynching party, taken to the small home town of the 
girl. Marietta, Georgia, and there lynched. It was this 
latest development which was being hawked about by 
the small newsboy at Vermilion. 

Personally, as I say, I had the feeling that Frank had 
been unjustly dealt with. This seemed another exhibition 
of that blood lust of the South which produces feuds, 
duels, lynchings and burning at the stake even to this 
day and which I invariably relate to the enforced sup- 
pression of very natural desires in another direction. 
Southerners are usually so avid of women and so loud 
in their assertions that they are not. I have no opposi- 
tion to Southerners as such. In many respects they are 
an interesting and charming people, courteous, hospitable, 
a little inclined to over-emphasis of gallantry and chivalry 
and their alleged moral purity, but otherwise interesting. 
But this sort of thing always strikes me as a definite in- 
dictment of the real native sense of the people. Have 
they brains, poise, judgment? Why, then, indulge in the 
antics and furies of children and savages? 

I raged at the South for its narrowness and inefficiency 
and ignorance. Franklin, stung by the crime, no doubt, 



238 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

agreed with me. He told me of being in a quick lunch 
room in New York one day when a young Southerner 
entered and found a negro in the place, eating. Now 
as everyone* knows, this is a commonplace. I, often, have 
sat next to a negro and eaten in peace and comfort. But 
according to Franklin, the first impulse of this Southerner 
was to make a scene and stir up as much prejudice as 
possible, beginning, as usual, with "What the hell Is a 
damned negro doing in here, anyhow?" 

"He looked about for sympathy," said Franklin, "but 
no one paid the slightest attention to him. Then he be- 
gan pushing his chair about irritably and swaggering, 
but still no one heeded him. Finally, reducing his voice 
to a grumble, he went quietly and secured his sandwich, 
his coffee and his pie, like any other downtrodden Amer- 
ican." 

"But what a blow it must have been to him to find 
himself swamped by a sea of indifference!" I said — "not 
a soul to share his views!" 

"It is that sort of thing that makes the South a jest 
to me," continued Franklin. "I can't stand it." 

His face was quite sour, much more so than I had seen 
it on any other occasion on this tour. 

"Oh, well," I said, "those things adjust themselves in 
the long run. Frank is dead, but who knows, lynching 
may be killed by this act. The whole North and West 
is grieved by this. They will take it out of the South 
in contempt and money. Brutality must pay for itself 
like a stone flung in the water, if no more than by rings 
of water. The South cannot go on forever doing this 
sort of thing." 

After we had raged sufficiently we rode on, for by now 
Speed had finished his lunch. Here, following that lake 
road I have mentioned, we were in an ideal realm for 
a time again, free of all the dreary monotony of the land 
farther south. The sun shone, the wind blew, and we for- 
got all about Frank and careened along the shore look- 
ing at the tumbling waves. Once we climbed down 
a steep bank and stood on the shore, expatiating on how 







CEDAR POINT, LAKE ERIE 
A Norse Sky 



OSTEND PURGED OF SIN 239 

fine it all was. Another time we got off to pick a few 
apples ready to our hand. There were many detours 
and we passed a fair sized town called Huron, basking in 
a blaze of afternoon light, but for once not stopping be- 
cause it lay a little to the right of our road to Sandusky. 
In another hour we were entering the latter place, a clean, 
smooth paved city of brick and frame cottages, with 
women reading or sewing on doorsteps and porches, and 
a sense of American solidarity and belief in all the virtues 
hovering over it all. 

I never knew until I reached there and beheld it with 
my own eyes that Sandusky has near it one of the finest 
fresh water beaches in the world — and I have seen 
beaches and beaches and beaches, from those at Monte 
Carlo, Nice and Mentone to those that lie between Port- 
land, Maine, and New Brunswick, Georgia. It is called 
Cedar Point, and is not much more than twenty minutes 
from the pier at the foot of Columbus Avenue, in the 
heart of the city — if you go by boat. They have not been 
enterprising enough as yet to provide a ferry for auto- 
mobiles. Once you get there by a very roundabout trip 
of twelve miles, you can ride for seven miles along a 
cement road which parallels exactly the white sand of the 
beach and allows you to enjoy the cool lake winds and 
even the spray of the waves when the wind is high. It is 
backed by marsh land, some of which has been drained 
and is now offered as an ideal and exclusive residence 
park. 

But the trip was worth the long twelve miles — splen- 
didly worth it — once we had made up our minds to re- 
turn there, — for coming we had passed it without know- 
ing it. What induced us to go was a number of picture 
cards we saw in the principal department store here, 
showing Cedar Point Beach in a storm. Cedar Point 
Beach crowded with thousands of bathers. Cedar Point 
Beach Pier accommodating three or four steamers at 
once, and so forth, all very gay and summery and all 
seeming to indicate a world of Monte Carloesque pro- 
portions. 



240 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

As a matter of fact, it was nothing liice Monte Carlo 
or any other beach, except for its physical beauty as a 
sea beach, for how could a watering place on a lake in 
Ohio have any of the features of a cosmopolitan ocean 
resort? In spite of the fact that it boasted two very 
large hotels, a literally enormous casino and bathing pa- 
vilion, and various forms of amusement pavilions, it was 
without the privilege of selling a drop of intoxicants, 
and its patrons, to the number of thousands, vi'ere any- 
thing but smart — just plain. Middle West family people. 

What'U we do with the Middle West and the South? 
Are they gradually and unconsciously sinking into the 
demnition doldrums? Suppose our largest soap factories, 
our largest reaper works, and our largest chewing gum 
emporiums are out there — what of it? It doesn't help 
much to amass large fortunes making routine things that 
merely increase the multitude who then sit back and do 
dull, routine things. Life was Intended for the spectacu- 
lar, I take it. It was intended to sting and hurt so that 
songs and dreams might come forth. When it becomes 
mere plethora and fixity, it is nothing — a stultifying world. 
When a great crisis comes — as come it surely will at 
some time or other — if people have just eaten and played 
and not dreamed vastly and beautifully, they are as chaff 
blown by the wind or burned in the oven. They do 
not even make a good spectacle. They are just pushed 
aside, destroyed, forgotten. 

But this resort was so splendid in its natural aspects 
I could not help contrasting its material use by these 
middle westerners with what would have been the case 
if it were situate say in the South of France, or on the 
shores of Holland or Belgium. Anyone who has visited 
Scheveningen or Ostend, or Nice or Cannes, need scarcely 
be told there is a certain smartness not even suggested 
by the best of our American resorts. Contrasted even 
with these latter, this island place was lower in the scale. 
(I presume the Christian Middle West would say it was 
higher.) We motored out there positively thrilled by a 
halcyon evening in which a blood red sun, aided by tat- 



OSTEND PURGED OF SIN 241 

tered, wind whipped clouds, combined to give the day's 
close a fabled, almost Norse aspect. The long beach 
was so beautiful that it evoked exclamations of surprise 
and delight. Think of being able to tear along for 
seven miles and more, the open water to your right, a 
weird, grass grown marsh world dotted with tall, gaunt 
trees to your left, this splendid cloud world above, turgid 
with red and pink, and a perfect road to ride on! We 
tore. But when we reached the extreme point of land 
known as Cedar Point, and devoted, as I have said, to 
the more definite entertainment of the stranger, things 
were very different. The exterior of all that I saw was 
quite charming, but imagine an immense casino devoted 
to tables for people who bring their own lunch or dinner 
and merely want to buy coffee or milk or soda!! — No 
beer sold here, if you please. A perfectly legitimate and 
laudable atmosphere, say you? Quite so, only 

And then the large hotels! We looked at them. The 
prices of the best one ranged from two to four dollars 
a day; the other from one to two ! ! ! Shades of Atlantic 
City and Long Beach! — And remember that these were 
well built, well equipped hotels. The beach pavilions 
were attractive, but the crowd was of a simple, inexperi- 
enced character. I am not sniffing. Did I not praise 
Geneva Beach? I did. And before I left here I was 
fond of this place and would not have changed it in any 
least detail. I would not have even these mid-westerners 
different, in spite of anything I may have said. They 
seem to know that Sunday School meetings are important 
and that one must succeed in business in some very small 
way; but even so, they are a vivacious, hopeful crew, and 
as such deserving of all praise. 

Franklin and I walked about talking about them and 
contrasting them with the East. Our conclusion was that 
the East is more schooled in vice and sensuality, and show 
and luxury, perhaps, and that these people were sweet 
and amusing and all right — here. We found a girl tend- 
ing a cigar counter in the principal casino — a very angular, 
not too attractive creature, but not homely either, and 



242 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

decidedly vivacious. I could not help contrasting her 
with the maidens who wait on you at telephone booths 
and stands generally in New York, and who fix you with 
an icy stare and, at telephone booths, inquire, "Numbah, 
please?" She was quite set up, in a pleasantly human 
way, by the fact that she was in charge of a cigar stand 
in so vivacious a world, and communicated her thoughts 
to us with the greatest pleasure and fluency. 

"Do you have many people here every day?" I asked, 
thinking that because I had seen three excursion steamers 
lying at anchor at the foot of the principal street in San- 
dusky it might merely be overrun by holiday crowds oc- 
casionally. 

"Indeed, yes," she replied briskly. "The two big ho- 
tels here are always full, and on the coldest days we 
have four or five hundred in bathing. Haven't you been 
here in the day time yet? Well, ya just ought to be here 
when it's very hot and the sun is bright. Crowds! 
Course, I haven't been to Atlantic City or any of them 
swell eastern places, but people that have tell me that 
this is one of the finest beaches anywhere. Style ! You 
just oughta see. And the crowds ! The bathing pavilions 
are packed, and the board walk. There are thousands 
of people here." 

"I suppose, then, this casino fills up completely?" I 
said, looking round and seeing a few empty tables here 
and there. 

It had evidently been raining the day before, and even 
early this morning, for it was pleasantly cool tonight and 
this seemed to have kept away some people. 

"Well, you just oughta see it on a real hot night, if 
you don't think we have crowds here. Full I Why people 
stand around and wait. It's wonderful 1" 

"Indeed? And is there much money spent here?" 

"Well, I suppose as much as anywhere. I don't know 
about them big resorts in the East, but there's enough 
money spent here. Goodness! People come and take 
whole soots of rooms at these big hotels. You see some 
mighty rich people here." 



OSTEND PURGED OF SIN 243 

Franklin and I availed ourselves of the cafeteria sys- 
tem of this place to serve ourselves and be in the life. 
We walked along the beach looking at the lights come 
out on the hotel verandas and in the pavilions and under 
the trees. We walked under these same trees and 
watched the lovers courting, and noted the old urge of 
youth and blood on every hand. There was dancing in 
one place, and at a long pier reaching out into the bay 
on the landward side, a large ferry steamer was unload- 
ing hundreds more. Finally at ten o'clock we returned 
Sanduskyward, listening to the splash of the waves on the 
shore, and observing the curious cloud formations which 
hung overhead, interspersed with stars. In them once 
I saw a Russian monjik's head with the fur cap pulled 
low over the ears — that immemorial cap worn by the 
Assyrians and Chaldeans. Again I saw an old hag pursu- 
ing a wisp of cloud that looked like a fleeing hare, and 
then two horsemen riding side by side in the sky. Again 
I saw a whale and a stag, and finally a great hand, its 
fingers outspread — a hand that seemed to be reaching 
up helplessly and as if for aid. 

The night was so fine that I would have counseled rid- 
ing onward toward Fort Wayne, but when we reached 
Sandusky again and saw its pleasant streets and a clean- 
looking hotel, we concluded that we would stay by the 
ills we knew rather than to fly toward others that we 
knew not of. 



CHAPTER XXXI 

WHEN HOPE HOPPED HIGH 

It is Anatole France, I think, who says somewhere 
that "robbery is to be condoned; the result of robbery 
respected." Even so, listen to this story. We came into 
this hotel at eleven p. M. or thereabouts. Franklin, who 
is good at bargaining, or thinks he is, sallied up to the 
desk and asked for two rooms with bath, and an arrange- 
ment whereby our chauffeur could be entertained for 
less — the custom. There was a convention of some kind 
in town — traveling salesmen in certain lines, I believe — 
and all but one room in this hotel, according to the clerk, 
was taken. However, it was a large room — very, he 
said, with three beds and a good bath. Would we take 
that? If so, we could have it, without breakfast, of 
course, for three dollars. 

"Done," said Franklin, putting all three names on the 
registry. 

It was a good room, large and clean, with porcelain 
bath of good size. We arose fairly early and break- 
fasted on the usual hotel breakfast. I made the pain- 
ful mistake of being betrayed by the legend "pan fish 
and fried mush" from taking ham and eggs. 

After our breakfast we came downstairs prepared 
to pay and depart, when, in a polite voice — oh, very 
suave — the day clerk, a different one from him of the 
night — announced to Franklin, who was at the window, 
"Seven-fifty, please." 

"How do you make that out?" inquired Franklin, 
taken aback. 

"Three people in one room at three dollars a day 
each (two dollars each for the night) — six dollars. 
Breakfast, fifty cents each, extra — one-fifty. Total, seven- 
fifty." 

244 



WHEN HOPE HOPPED HIGH 245 

"But I thought you said this room was three for the 

night for three?" 

"Oh, no — three dollars each per day. Two dollars 
each for the night. We always let it that way." 

"Oh, I see," said Franklin, curiously. "You know 
what the night clerk said to me, do you?" 

"I know the regular rate we charge for this room." 

For the fraction of a moment Franklin hesitated, then 
laid down a ten dollar bill. 

"Why do you do that, Franklin?" I protested. "It 
isn't fair. I wouldn't. Let's see the manager." 

"Oh, well," he half whispered in weariness. "What 
can you do about it? They have you at their mercy." 

In the meantime, the clerk had slipped the bill In the 
drawer and handed back two-fifty in change. 

"But, Franklin," I exclaimed, "this is an outrage. This 
man doesn't know anything about it, or if he does, he's 
swindling. Why doesn't he get the manager here if he's 
on the level?" 

This gentle clerk merely smiled at me. He had a 
comfortable, even cynical, grin on his face, which enraged 
me all the more. 

"You know what you are?" I asked him asudden. 
"You're a damned, third rate fakir and swindler! You 
know you're lying when you say that room rents for three 
per person when three occupy it. That's nine dollars a 
day for a room in an hotel that gets two or three dollars 
at the outside." 

He smiled, unperturbed, and then turned to wait on 
other people. 

I raged and swore. I called him a few more names, 
but it never disturbed him the least. I demanded to see 
the mythical manager — but he remained mythical. Frank- 
lin, shocked, went off to get a cigar, and then helped Speed 
carry out the bags, porters being scarce. Meanwhile, I 
hung around hoping that glaring and offering to fight 
would produce some result. Not at all. Do you think 
I got back our three dollars, or that I ever saw the man- 
ager? Never. The car was ready. Franklin was wait- 



246 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

ing. He looked at me as much as to say, "Well, you do 
love to fight, don't you?" Finally I submitted to the in- 
evitable, and, considerably crestfallen, clambered into the 
car, while Franklin uttered various soothing comments 
about the futility of attempting to cope with scoundrels 
en route. What was a dollar or two, more or less? But 
as we rode out of Sandusky I saw myself (i) beating 
the hotel clerk to death, (2) tearing the hotel down and 
throwing it into the lake, (3) killing the manager and all 
the clerks and help, (4) marching a triumphant army 
against the city at some future time, and razing it to the 
last stone. 

"I would show them, by George! I would fix them!" 

"Aren't the clouds fine this morning?" observed Frank- 
lin, looking up at the sky, as we rolled out of the city. 
"See that fine patch of woods over there. Now that 
we're getting near the Indiana line the scenery is begin- 
ning to improve a little, don't you think?" 

We were in a more fertile land, I thought — smoother, 
more prosperous. The houses looked a little better, more 
rural and homey. 

"Yes, I think so," I grumbled. 

"And that's the lake off there. Isn't the wind fresh 
and fine?" 

It was. 

In a little while he was telling me of some Quakers who 
inhabited a Quaker community just north of his home 
town, and how one of them said to another once, in a 
fit of anger: 

"Wilbur, thee knows I can lick thee, the best day thee 
ever lived." 

The idea of two Quakers fighting cheered me. I felt 
much better. 

But now tell me — don't you think I ought to destroy 
Sandusky anyhow, as a warning? 

After we left Sandusky I began to feel at home again, 
for somehow this territory southwest was more like In- 
diana than any we had seen — smooth and placid and 



WHEN HOPE HOPPED HIGH 247 

fertile — It was a homelike land. We scudded through a 
place called Clyde, hung madly with hundreds of little 
blue and white triangular banners announcing that a Chau- 
tauqua was to be held here within a few days — one of 
those simple, country life Chautauquas which do so much, 
apparently, to enliven this mid-western world. And then 
we came to a place called Fremont, which had once had 
the honor of being the home and death place (if not birth- 
place) of the Hon. Rutherford B. Hayes, once President 
of the United States by accident — the man who stole the 
office from Samuel J. Tilden, who was elected. A queer 
honor — but dishonor is as good as honor any day for 
ensuring one a place in the memory of posterity. 

And after that we drove through places called Wood- 
side and Pemberton and Portage — you know the size — 
only in these towns, by now, I was seeing exact dupli- 
cates of men I had known in my earliest days. Thus 
at Woodside where we asked our way to Pemberton and 
Bowling Green, Ohio, the man who leaned against our 
car was an exact duplicate of a man I had known in 
Sullivan, over thirty years before, who used to drive a 
delivery wagon, and the gentleman he was driving (a 
local merchant of some import, I took it) was exactly 
like old Leonard B. Welles, who used to run one of the 
four or five successful grocery stores in Warsaw. He 
had a short, pointed, and yet full beard, with steely blue 
eyes and a straight, thin-lipped mouth — but not an un- 
kindly expression about them. I began to think of the 
days when I used to wait for old Mr. Welles to serve me. 

Later we came to a river called Portage, yellow and 
placid and flowing between winding banks that sep- 
arated fields of hay from fields of grain; and then we 
began to draw near to a territory with which I had been 
exceedingly familiar twenty years before — so much so 
that it remains as fresh as though it had been yesterday. 

You must know, because I propose to tell you, that in 
the fair city of St. Louis, at the age of twentytwo, I was 
fairly prosperous as a working newspaper man's prosper- 
ity goes, and in a position to get or make or even keep 



248 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

a place not only for myself but for various others — such 
friends, for instance, as I chose to aid. I do not record 
this boastfully. I was a harum scarum youth, who was 
fairly well liked by his elders, but with no least faculty, 
apparently, of taking care of his own interests. From 
Chicago one of those fine days blew a young newspaper 
man whom I had known and liked up there. He was 
not a very good newspaper man, humdrum and good 
natured, but a veritable satellite of mine. He wanted me 
to get him a place and I did. Then he wanted counsel as 
to whether he should get married, and I aided and abetted 
him in that. Then he lost his job through his inability to 
imagine something properly one night, and I had to get 
him another one. Then he began to dream of running 
a country paper with me as a fellow aspirer to rural 
honors and emoluments, and if you will believe me, so 
rackbrained was I, and so restless and uncertain as to my 
proper future, that I listened to him with willing ears. 
Yes, I had some vague, impossible idea of being first 
State Assemblyman Dreiser of some rural region, and 
then, perchance. State Senator Dreiser, and then Con- 
gressman Dreiser, or Governor Dreiser, if you please, 
and all at once, owing to my amazing facility and savoir 
faire, and my clear understanding of the rights, priv- 
ileges, duties and emoluments of private citizens, and of 
public officers, and because of my deep and abiding in- 
terest in the welfare of the nation — President Dreiser — 
the distinguished son of the state of Indiana, or Ohio, or 
Michigan, or wherever I happened to bestow myself. 

I had only one hundred and fifty dollars all told in 
the world at the time — but somehow money didn't seem 
so very important. Perhaps that was why I listened to 
him. Anyhow, he hailed from this northern section of 
Ohio. His father lived just outside of the village of 
Grand Rapids (Ohio, not Michigan), and between there 
and a town called Bowling Green, which we were now 
approaching, lay the region which we were to improve 
with our efforts and presence. 

Looking at the country now, and remembering it as it 



WHEN HOPE HOPPED HIGH 249 

was then, I could see little, if any, change. Oh, yes — 
one. At that time it was dotted on every hand with tall 
skeleton derricks for driving oil wells. The farming 
world was crazy about oil wells, believing them to be the 
open sesame to a world of luxury and every blessed thing 
which they happened to desire. And every man who 
owned so much as a foot of land was sinking an oil well 
on it. The spectacle which I beheld when I first ventured 
into this region was one to stir the soul of avarice, if 
not of oil. As far as the eye could see, the still wintry 
fields were dotted with these gaunt structures standing 
up naked and cold — a more or less unsatisfactory sight. 
I remember asking myself rather ruefully why it was 
that I couldn't own an oil well and be happy. Now when 
I entered this region again all these derricks had dis- 
appeared, giving place to small dummy engines, or some 
automatic arrangement lying close to the ground, and 
controlled from afar, by which the oil pumping was done. 
These engines were very dirty, but fortunately incon- 
spicuous. And apparently nearly all the wells which I 
had seen being dug in 1893 had proved successful. In 
every field was at least one of these pumping devices, and 
sometimes two and three, all in active working order. 
They looked odd in fields of corn and wheat. But where 
were the palaces of great beauty which the farmers of 
1893 expected if they struck oil? I saw none; merely 
many fairly comfortable, and I trust happy, homes. 

But to return to my venture into this region. The most 
disturbing thing about it, as I look back on it now, is that 
it shows me how nebulous and impractical I was at that 
time. Clearly I had had a sharp desire to be rich and 
famous, without any understanding of how to achieve 
these terms of comfort. On the other hand, I had the 
true spirit of adventure, else I would never have dropped 
so comfortable a berth as I had, where I was well liked, 
to come up here where I knew nothing of what the future 
held in store. Great dreams invariably shoot past the 
possibilities of life. 

Those cold, snowy, silent streets, those small bleak 



250 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

homes, shut in from the February or March cold, with 
all the force of their country life centered around the 
parlor stove ! H , my fellow adventurer, had pre- 
ceded me, occupying with his wife a comfortable portion 
of his father's home, and it was he who met me at the 
train. He could live here comfortably and indefinitely, 
and think nothing of it. He was home. After a single 
day's investigation, I now saw that there was nothing to 
his proposition as far as I or Grand Rapids was con- 
cerned — not a thing. The paper which he had outlined 
to me as having a working circulation of sixteen hundred 
and advertising to the value of a thousand or more had 
really nothing at all. The county, which had only per- 
haps 10,000 population, had already more papers than 
it could support. The last editor had decamped, leaving 
a novice who worked for the leading druggist, owner of 
the printing press and other materials of construction, to 
potter about, endeavoring to explain what was useless to 
explain. And I had thrown up a good position to pursue 
a chimera. 

But in spite of this, H wished to see all the lead- 
ing citizens to discover what encouragement they would 
offer to two aspiring souls like ourselves! I can see them 
yet — one a tall, bony man of a ministerial cast of coun- 
tenance. He was the druggist, and by the same token one 
of several doctors living here. There was a short, fat, 
fussy man, who ran the principal feed and livery stable. 
He had advertised occasionally in other days. Then 
there were the local banker and four or five others, all of 
them meager, unimportant intellects. 

They looked us over as if we were adventurers from 
Mars. They weren't sure whether they needed a news- 
paper here or not. I agree now that they did not. They 
talked about small advertisements which they might or 
might not run, but which they were certain had never 
paid when they did — advertisements which they had 
placed as a favor to the former editor or editors. In 
addition, they wanted assurances as to how the paper 
would be run and whether we were good, moral boys and 



WHEN HOPE HOPPED HIGH 251 

whether we would work hard for the Interests of the town 
and against certain unsatisfactory elements. It was amaz- 
ing. Oh, yes, the paper had to be Republican in politics. 

"No, no, no," I finally said to H , in a spirit of 

dissatisfaction and at the end of a long, cold, windy day. 
We had walked out the country road toward his house 
and I had stopped to stare at an array of crows occupying 
a bleak woodpatch, and at the red sun, smiling over a 
floor of white. "There's nothing in this. It would set 
me crazy. It's a wild goose chase. Is there anything 
else around here, or shall I skip out tonight?" 

He wanted me to stay and visit Bowling Green, a town 
near at hand. (This was the one we were novi' approach- 
ing.) There was another newspaper there for sale on 
easy terms. I agreed after some coaxing, and, having 
lingered three days to secure suitable roads — the distance 
was twentyfive miles — we drove over. That was the 
time I saw the gas wells. It was a better place than 
Grand Rapids, but the price of the paper, when we 
reached there, was much more than we could pay. I 
think we figured, between us, that we could put down two 
hundred dollars and the owners wanted five hundred, 
with the balance on mortgage and a total selling price of 
eight thousand. So that dream went glimmering. In 
the meanwhile, I browsed about studying country life, 

admiring the Maumee River at Grand Rapids (H 's 

home faced it from a beautiful rise). Then one fine 
spring day the sun rose on fields from which the snow 
had suddenly melted, and I felt that I must be off. I 
went, as I have said, to Toledo first. Here I encountered 
the youth to whom I have frequently referred and with 
whom I was destined to lead a curious career. 

But now that I am upon the subject, perhaps I might 
as well include the story of my journey into Toledo, 
where was a principal paper called the Blade with which 
I wished to connect myself, if possible. The place only 
had a hundred thousand at the time, and I did not think 
it worth the remaining years of my life, but I thought it 
might be good for a little while — say six months. AI- 



252 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

though I was considered (I am merely quoting others) 
an exceptional newspaper man, I did not know what I 
wanted to be. Already the newspaper profession was 
boring me. It seemed a hopeless, unremunerative, more 
or less degrading form of work, and yet I could think of 
nothing else to do. Apparently I had no other talent. 

I shall never forget the first morning I went into To- 
ledo. The train followed the bank of a canal and ran 
between that canal and the Maumee River. The snow 
which had troubled us so much a day or two before had 
gone off, and it was as bright and encouraging as one 
might wish. I was particularly elated by the natural as- 
pects of this region, for the Maumee River, beginning at 
Fort Wayne, Indiana, and flowing northeastward, makes 
a peculiarly attractive scenic diversion. It is a beautiful 
stream, with gently sloping banks on either hand, and in 
places rapids and even slight falls. At Grand Rapids 
and farther along it broadened out into something essen- 
tially romantic to look upon, and Toledo itself, when I 
reached it, was so clean and new and industrious — with- 
out all the depressing areas of factory and tenement life 
which lowers the charm of some cities. It seemed to me 
as I looked at it this Spring morning as if life must 
be better here than in cities older, or at least greater — 
cities like St. Louis and Chicago, where so much of the 
oppressive struggle for existence had already manifested 
itself. And yet I knew I liked those cities better. Be 
that as it may, it was a happy prospect which I contem- 
plated, and I sought out the office of the Blade with the 
air of one who is certain of his powers and not likely to 
be daunted by mere outward circumstances. 

I have always felt of life that it is more fortuitous 
than anything else. People strive so mightily to do 
things — to arrange life according to some scheme of their 
own — but little, if anything, comes of it in most cases. 
Children are taught by their parents that they must be 
this, that, or the other to get along — economical, indus- 
trious, sober, truthful and the like — and what comes of 
it? Unless they are peculiarly talented and able to use 



WHEN HOPE HOPPED HIGH 253 

life in a direct and forceful way — unless they have quali- 
ties or charms which draw life to them, or compel life to 
come, willy-nilly, they are used and then discarded. A 
profound schooling in manners, morals and every other 
virtue and pleasantry will not make up for lack of looks 
in a girl. Honesty, sobriety, industry, and even other 
solemn virtues, will not raise a lad to a seat of dignity. 
Life is above these petty rules, however essential they 
may be to the strong in ruling the weak, or to a state 
or nation in the task of keeping itself in order. We suc- 
ceed or fail not by the socalled virtues or their absence, 
but by something more or less than these things. All 
good things are gifts — beauty, strength, grace, mag- 
netism, swiftness and subtlety of mind, the urge or com- 
pulsion to do. Taking thought will not bring them to 
anyone. Effort never avails save by grace or luck or 
something else. The illusion of the self made Is one of 
the greatest of all. 

Here in Toledo I came upon one of the happiest illus- 
trations of this. In the office of the Blade in the city edi- 
torial room, sat a young man as city editor who was 
destined to take a definite and inspiriting part in my life. 
He was small, very much smaller than myself, plump, 
rosy cheeked, with a complexion of milk and cream, soft 
light brown hair, a clear, observing blue eye. Without 
effort you could detect the speculative thinker and 
dreamer. In the role of city editor of a western manu- 
facturing town paper, one must have the air, if not the 
substance, of commercial understanding and ability (ex- 
ecutive control and all that), and so in this instance, my 
young city editor seemed to breathe a determination to 
be very executive and forceful. 

"You're a St. Louis newspaper man, eh?" he said, 
estimating me casually and In a glance. "Never worked 
In a town of this size though? Well, the conditions are 
very different. We pay much more attention to small 
Items — make a good deal out of nothing," he smiled. 
"But there isn't a thing that I can see anyhow. Nothing 
much beyond a three or four day job, which you wouldn't 



254 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

want, I'm sure. As a matter of fact, there's a street car 
strike on — you may have noticed it — and I could use a 
man who would have nerve enough to ride round on the 
cars which the company is attempting to run and report 
how things are. But I'll tell you frankly, it's dangerous. 
You may be shot or hit with a brick." 

"Yes," I said, smiling and thinking of my need of 
experience and cash. "Just how many days' work would 
you guarantee me, if any?" 

"Well, four. I could guarantee you that many." 

He looked at me in a mock serious and yet approving 
way. I could see that he was attracted to me — fate only 
knows why. Something about me (as he told me later) 
affected him vigorously. He could not, he admitted, get 
me out of his mind. He was slightly ashamed of offering 
me so wretched a task, and yet urged by the necessity of 
making a showing in the face of crisis. He, too, was 
comparatively new to his task. 

I will not go into this story further than to say that 
it resulted in an enduring and yet stormy and disillusion- 
ing friendship. If he had been a girl he would have mar- 
ried me, of course. It would have been inevitable, even 
though he was already married, as he was. That other 
marriage would have been broken up. We were intel- 
lectual affinities, as it were. Our dreams were practically 
identical, approaching them though we were, at different 
angles. He was more the sentimentalist in thought, 
though the realist in action; I the realist in thought, and 
sentimentalist in action. He kept looking at me and that 
same morning, when having ridden about over all the 
short lines unharmed and made up a dramatic story, 
and when, in addition, for a "Romance Column" which 
the paper ran, I had written one or two brief descrip- 
tions of farm life about Toledo, he came over to tell me 
that he was impressed. My descriptions were beautiful, 
he said. 

We went out to lunch, and stayed nearly three hours. 
He took me out to dinner. Though he was newly mar- 
ried and his delightful young wife was awaiting him in 



WHEN HOPE HOPPED HIGH 255 

their home a few miles out of the city, duty compelled him 
to stay in town. Damon had met Pythias — Gawayne, 
Ivaine. We talked and talked and talked. He had 
worked in Chicago; so had I. He had known various 
newspaper geniuses there — so had I. He had dreams 
of becoming a poet and novelist — I of becoming a play- 
wright. Before the second day had gone, a book of 
fairytales and some poems he had completed and was 
publishing locally had been shown me. Under the action 
of our joint chemistries I was magically impressed. I 
became enamoured of him — the victim of a delightful 
illusion — one of the most perfect I have ever entertained. 

Because he was so fond of me, so strikingly adoring, 
he wanted me to stay on. There was no immediate place, 
and he could not make one for me at once, but would 
I not wait until an opening might come ? Or better yet — 
would I not wander on toward Cleveland and Buffalo, 
working at what I chose, and then, if a place opened, 
come back? He would telegraph me (as he subsequently 
did at Pittsburg). Meanwhile we reveled in that won- 
derful possession — intellectual affection — a passionate in- 
tellectual rapprochement, in youth. I thought he was 
beautiful, great, perfect. He thought — well, I have 
heard him tell in after years what he thought. Even now, 
at times, he fixes me with hungry, welcoming eyes. 

Alas, alas, for the dreams and the perfections which 
never stay ! 



CHAPTER XXXII 

THE FRONTIER OF INDIANA 

To me, therefore, this region was holy Ganges — 
Mecca, Medina — the blessed isles of the West. In ap- 
proaching Bowling Green, Ohio, I was saying to myself 

how strange it will be to see H again, should he 

chance to be there ! What an interesting talk I will have 
with him! And after Bowling Green how interesting to 
pass through Grand Rapids, even though there was not 
a soul whom I would wish to greet again I Toledo was 
too far north to bother about. 

When we entered Bowling Green, however, by a 
smooth macadam road under a blazing sun, it was really 
not interesting at all; indeed it was most disappointing. 
The houses were small and low and everything was still, 
and after one sees town after town for eight hundred or 
a thousand miles, all more or less alike, one town must 
be different and possessed of some intrinsic merit not 
previously encountered to attract attention. 

I persuaded Franklin to stop at the office of the prin- 
cipal newspaper, in order that I might make inquiry as 

to the present whereabouts of H . He had written 

me, about four years before, to say that he was con- 
nected with a paper here. He wanted me to teach 
him how to write short stories! It was a dull room or 
store, facing the principal street, like a bank. In it were 
a young, reporterish looking boy, very trig and brisk 
and curious as to his glance, and a middle aged man, 
bald, red faced, roundly constructed like a pigeon, and 
about as active. 

"Do you happen to recall a man by the name of H 

who used to work here in Bowling Green?" I inquired 
of the elder, not willing to believe that he had controlled 

256 



THE FRONTIER OF INDIANA 257 

a paper, though I had understood from someone that 
he had. 

"B H ?" he replied, looking me over. 

"Yes, that's the man." 

"He did work here on the other paper for a while," 
he replied with what seemed to me a faint look of con- 
tempt, though it may not have been. "He hasn't been here 
for four or five years at the least. He's up in Michigan 
now, I believe — Battle Creek, or Sheboygan, or some 
such place as that. They might tell you over at the other 
office." He waved his hand toward some outside insti- 
tution — the other paper. 

"You didn't happen to know him personally, I pre- 
sume?" 

"No, I saw him a few times. He was their general 
utility man, I believe." 

I went out, uncertain whether to bother any more or 
not. Twentythree years is a long time. I had not seen 
him in all of that. I started to walk toward the other 
newspaper office, but the sight of the bare street, with a 
buggy or two and an automobile, and the low, quiet store 
buildings, deterred me. 

"What's the use?" I asked myself. "This is a stale, 
impossible atmosphere. There isn't an idea above hay 
and feed in the whole place." 

I climbed back in the car and we fled. 

It was not much better for some distance beyond here 
until we began to draw near Napoleon, Ohio. The coun- 
try for at least twenty miles was dreadfully flat and un- 
interesting — houses with low fences and prominent 
chicken coops, orchards laden with apples of a still green- 
ish yellow color, fields of yellowing wheat or green corn 
— oh, so very flat. Not a spire of an interesting church 
anywhere, not a respectable piece of architecture, noth- 
ing. Outside of one town, where we stopped for a glass 
of water, we did encounter a brick and plaster mauso- 
leum—the adjunct, I believe, of a crematory — set down 
at the junction of two macadam crossroads, and enclosed 
by a most offensive wooden fence. Although there were 



258 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

some wide fields and some patches of woods, which might 
have been utilized to give an institution of this kind a 
little grace — it had none, not the faintest trace. The 
ground was grassless, or only patched in spots with it. 
The stained glass windows which ornamented its four 
sides were botches — done by some wholesale stained- 
glass window company, very likely of Peoria, Illinois. 

"Kind heaven," I exclaimed, on sight of it, "what is 
the matter with a country where such things can be? 
What's the trouble with their minds anyhow? What a 
deadly yearning for the commonplace and crude and of- 
fensive possesses them!" 

"Yes, and they slave to do it," replied Franklin. "You 
haven't any idea how people will toil for years under a 
hot sun or in cold or snow to be able to build a thing like 
that" — and he pointed to a new yellow house of the most 
repulsive design. 

"You're right! You're right!" I replied. 

"This country isn't so bad, perhaps, but the intellec- 
tual or temperamental condition of the people spoils it — 
their point of view. I feel a kind of chicken raising mind 
to be dominant here. If another kind of creature lived 
on this soil it would be lovely, I'm sure of it." 

We sank into a deep silence. The car raced on. Once 
Franklin, seeing some fine apples on a tree, stopped the 
car, climbed a fence, and helped himself to a dozen. 
They were better to look at than to eat. 

It was only when we reached the region of the Maumee 
that things began to brighten up again. We were enter- 
ing a much fairer land — a region extending from the 
Maumee here at Grand Rapids, Ohio, to Fort Wayne, 
Warsaw and North Manchester, Indiana, and indeed, 
nearly all the rest of our journey. We were leaving the 
manufacturing section of Ohio and the East, and entering 
the grain growing, rural life loving middle West. The 
Maumee, when we reached it again, revivified all my 
earliest and best impressions of it. It was a beautiful 
stream, dimpling smoothly between raised banks of dark 
earth and fringed for the most of the way by lines of 



/ 



THE FRONTIER OF INDIANA 259 



poplar, willow, and sycamore. Great patches of the 
parasite gold thread flourished here— more gold thread 
than I ever saw in my life before— looking like flames of 
light on a grey day, and covering whole small islands and 
steep banks for distances of thirty or forty feet or more 
at a stretch. We might have ridden into and through 
Grand Rapids, but I thought it scarcely worth while 
What would I see anyhow? Another town like Bowling 

Green, only smaller, and the farm of H 's parents 

perhaps, if I could find it. All this would take time, and 
would It be worth while? I decided not. The Maumee, 
once we began to skirt its banks, was so poetic that I 
knew It could not be better nor more reminiscent of those 
older days, even though I followed it into Toledo. 

But truly, this section, now that we were out of the 
cruder, coarser manufacturing and farming region which 
lay to the east of it, appealed to me mightily. I was begin- 
ning to feel as if I were in good company again — better 
company than we had been in for some time. Perhaps 
the people were not so pushing, so manufacturing,— 
for which heaven be praised. We encountered three 
towns. Napoleon, Defiance and Hicksville, before night- 
fall, which revived all the happiest days and ideals of my 
youth. Indeed, Napoleon was Warsaw over again, with 
Its stone and red brick courthouse,— surmounted by a 
statute of Napoleon Bonaparte (gosh I)— and its O. N. 
G. Armory, and its pretty red brick Methodist and brown 
stone Presbyterian Churches and its iron bridges over 
the Maumee. The river here was as wide and shallow 
a tiling as had been the Tippecanoe at home, at its best, 
with a few small boat houses at one place, and lawns or 
gardens which came down to the water's edge at others. 
The principal street was crowded with ramshackle bug- 
gies and very good automobiles (exceedingly fancy ones, 
in many instances) and farmers and idlers in patched 
brown coats and baggy, shapeless trousers— delightful 
pictures, every one of them. We eventually agreed to 
stop, and got out and hung about, while Speed went back 



26o A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

to a garage which we had seen and treated himself to 
oil and gas. 

Truly, if I were a poet, I would now attempt a "Ru- 
baiyat of a Middle West Town," or I would compose 
"The Ballad of Napoleon, Ohio," or "Verses on Hicks- 
ville," or "Rondels of Warsaw." You have no idea what 
a charm these places have — what a song they sing — to 
one who has ever been of them and then gone out into the 
world and changed and cannot see life any more through 
the medium — the stained glass medium, if you will — of 
the time and the mood which we call our youth. 

Here, as at Warsaw, the railroad station of an older 
day was hidden away in a side street, where possibly six 
trains a day may have stopped. At Warsaw we had the 
village bus, which took passengers to the one hotel. 
Here they had a Ford, by heck ! 

"None o' your cheap busses for us any more!" 

And in the plain red brick business street was this 
motley and yet charming collection of people. I have 
indicated farmers and farmers' wives in (the equivalent 
of) homespun and linen. Behold, now, your town dandy, 
bustling into the bank or bookstore at two P. M. of this 
fine afternoon, a veritable village Beau Brummell, very 
conscious of his charms. He is between twentyone and 
twentythree, and very likely papar owns the book or the 
clothing store and is proud of his son's appearance. In 
my day son would have had a smart runabout, with red 
or yellow wheels, in which he would have arrived, pick- 
ing up a very pretty girl by the way. Now he has an 
automobile — even if it is only a Buick — and he feels 
himself to be the most perfect of youths. 

And here come three girls, arm in arm, village belles, 
so pretty in their bright, summery washdresses. Do you 
think New York can teach them anything — or Paris? 
Tush I Not so fast. Look at our skirts, scarcely below 
the knees, with pointed ruffles, and flaring flounces, and 
our bright grey kid slippers, and the delicate frills about 
our necks, and the soft bloomy gaiety of our "sport" 
hats. New York teach us anything? We teach New 



THE FRONTIER OF INDIANA 261 

York, rather! We are down for mail, or stationery, or 
an ice cream soda, and to see and be seen. Perhaps Beau 
Brummell will drive us home in his car, or we may refuse 
and just laugh at him. 

And, if you please, here is one of the town's young 
scarlet women. No companionship for her. She is 
dressed like the others, only more so, but to emphasize 
the difference she is rouged as to cheeks and lips. Those 
eager, seeking eyes! No woman will openly look at her, 
nor any girl. But the men — these farmers and lawyers 
and town politicians! Which one of them will seek her 
out first tonight, do you suppose — the lawyer, the doctor, 
or the storekeeper? 

How good it all tasted after New York! And what a 
spell it cast. I can scarcely make you understand, I fear. 
Indiana is a world all unto itself, and this extreme west- 
ern portion of Ohio is a part of it, not by official, but 
rather by natural arrangement. The air felt different — 
the sky and trees and streets here were sweeter. They 
really were. The intervening years frizzled away and 
once more I saw myself quite clearly in this region, with 
the ideas and moods of my youth still dominant. I was 
a "kid" again, and these streets and stores were as fa- 
miliar to me as though I had lived in them all my life. 

Franklin and I were looking in at the window of the 
one combined music and piano store, to see what they 
sold. All the popular songs were there — "I Didn't 
Raise My Boy To Be a Soldier," "It's a Long, Long Way 
to Tipperary," "He's a Devil in His Own Home Town," 
and others such as "Goodbye, Goodbye" and "Though 
We Should Never Meet Again." As I looked at these 
things, so redolent of small town love affairs and of call- 
ing Wednesdays and Saturdays, my mind went back to all 
the similar matters I had known (not my own — I never 
had any) and the condition of the attractive girl 
and the average young men in a town like this. How 
careful is their upbringing — supposedly. How earnestly 
is the Sunday School and the precept and the maxim in- 
voked, and how persistently so many of them go their 



262 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

own way. They do not know what it is all about, all 
this talk about religion and morality and duty. In their 
blood is a certain something which responds to the light 
of the sun and the blue of the sky. 

Did you ever read "The Ballad of the Nun," by John 
Davidson? See if this doesn't suggest what I'm talking 
about: 

"The adventurous sun took heaven by storm, 
Clouds scattered largesses of rain, 
The sounding cities, rich and warm, 
Smouldered and glittered in the plain. 

"Sometimes it was a wandering wind, 
Sometimes the fragrance of the pine, 
Sometimes the thought how others sinned, 
That turned her sweet blood into wine. 

"Sometimes she heard a serenade, 
Complaining, sweetly, far away. 
She said, 'A young man woos a maid' ; 
And dreamt of love till break of day. 

"For still night's starry scroll unfurled, 
And still the day came like a flood: 
It was the greatness of the world 
That made her long to use her blood." 

Somehow this region suggested this poem. 

But, oh, these youngsters, the object of so much at- 
tention and solicitation, once they break away from these 
sheltering confines and precepts and enter the great world 
outside — then what? Do they fulfil any or all of the 
ideals here dreamed for them? I often think of them in 
the springtime going forth to the towns and the cities, 
their eyes lit with the sheen of new life. Ninetynlne per 
cent, of them, as you and I know, end in the most hum- 
drum fashion — not desperately or dramatically — just 
humdrum and nothing at all. Death, disease, the dol- 
drums, small jobs, smaller ideas claim the majority of 
them. They grow up thinking that to be a drug clerk or 
a dentist or a shoe dealer is a great thing. Well, maybe 
it is — I don't know. Spinoza was a watch repairer. But 



THE FRONTIER OF INDIANA 263 

in youth all are so promising. They look so fine. And 
in a small town like this, they buzz about so ecstatically, 
dreaming and planning. 

Seeing young boys walking through the streets of Na- 
poleon and greeting each other and looking at the girls — 
sidewise or with a debonair security — brought back all 
the boys of my youth — all those who had been so prom- 
ising and of such high hopes in my day. Where are 
they? Well, I do not need to guess. In most cases I 
know. They would make gloomy or dull tales. Why 
bother? In spring the sun-god breeds a new crop. Each 
autumn a new class enters school. Each spring time, at 
school's end, a group break away to go to the city. 

Oh bright young hopes! Oh visions I visions! — mi- 
rages of success that hang so alluringly in amethyst skies! 



CHAPTER XXXIII 

ACROSS THE BORDER OF BOYLAND 

As we were looking in this same window, I saw a man 
who looked exactly like a man who used to be a lawyer 
politician in Warsaw, a small town lawyer politician, 
such as you find in every town of the kind, pettifogging 
their lives away, but doing it unconsciously, you may well 
believe. This one had that peculiar something about him 
which marks the citizen who would like to be a tribune 
of the people but lacks the capacity. His clothes, nonde- 
script, durable garments, were worn with the air of one 
who says "It is good to dress plainly. That is what my 
clients expect. Besides, I am a poor man, a com- 
moner, and proud of it. I know that my constituents 
are proud of it too." He was standing at the foot of a 
law office stairs from which quite plainly he had just 
descended. This was not quite enough to confirm me in 
my idea that he was a country lawyer — he might have 
been a client — but I went further and asked him, in a 
roundabout way. 

"What is the best road to Defiance?" 

"Well," he replied, with quite an air, as who should 
say, "now here is a pleasant opportunity and diversion" 
— "There are two of them. One runs to the north of 
here, a hard, macadam road, and the other follows the 
canal and the river most of the way. Personally, I would 
choose the canal. It isn't quite as good a road, but the 
scenery is so much better. You have the river nearly 
always in view to your left. To the right the scenery is 
very attractive." He raised his hand in a slightly ora- 
torical way. 

"By the way, if you will pardon me, you are a lawyer, 
aren't you?" 

264 



ACROSS THE BORDER OF BOYLAND 265 

"Well, yes, I suppose I might lay claim to that dis- 
tinction," he replied, with a faintly dry smile. "I prac- 
tice law here." 

His coat was as brown as old brass, nearly, his shoes 
thick and unpolished, his trousers bagg)'. The soft hat he 
wore was pulled down indifferently over his eyes. 

"I ask," I said, "because years ago, in Warsaw, In- 
diana, I knew a lawyer who looked very much like you." 

"Indeed! I've never been in Warsaw, but I've heard 
of it. We have people here that go to Winona Lake. 
That's right near there, isn't it?" 

"Practically the same place," I replied. 

"Well, when there are so many people in the world, 
I suppose some of us must look alike," he continued. 

"Yes," I replied, "I've met my counterpart more than 
once." 

He began to expatiate on the charms of this region, 
but seeing that we were plainly rather anxious to be off, 
finally concluded and let us go. I could not help thinking, 
as he looked after us, that perhaps he would like very 
much to be going himself. 

From here on the scenery was so simple and yet so 
beautiful that it was like a dream — such a land as Gold- 
smith and Gray had in mind when they wrote. This 
little stream, the Maumee, was delightful. It was, as he 
said, paralleled by a canal nearly all the way into De- 
fiance and between canal and river were many little sum- 
mer cottages, quaint and idle looking. 

It had become excessively hot, so much so that I felt 
that now, at last, I was beginning to sunburn badly, but 
in spite of this we had no thought of putting up the top 
or of seeking shelter by lingering in the shade. It was 
so hot that I perspired sitting in the car, but even so it 
was too lovely, just moving along with what breeze the 
motion provided. At Napoleon, Booth had bought a 
light rubber ball, and with this, a few miles out, we 
stopped to play. The automobile gave us this freedom 
to seek ideal nooks and secluded places, and thus disport 
ourselves. The grass and trees were still green, not 



266 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

burned. Wheat fields newly shorn or still standing had 
that radiant gold hue which so pleases the eye at this 
season of the year. It was so hot and still that even all 
insects seemed to have taken to cover. We tossed our 
ball in a green field opposite a grove and looking up I 
could see a lonely buzzard soaring in the sky. Truly 
this is my own, my native land, I said to myself. I have 
rejoiced in hundreds of days just like this. All the middle 
West is like it — this dry heat, these clear skies, this 
sleepy baking atmosphere. For hundreds of miles, in 
my mind's eye, I could see people idling on their porches 
or under their trees, making the best of it. The farmer's 
wain was creaking along in the sun, the cattle were idling 
in the water, swishing their tails. Girls and boys home 
from school for the summer were idling in hammocks, 
reading or loafing. Few great thoughts or turmoils were 
breeding in this region. It was a pleasant land of drowsy 
mind and idle eye — I could feel it. 

By winding ways, but always with a glimpse of this 
same Maumee or its parallel canal, we arrived at De- 
fiance, and a little while later, at dusk, at Hicksville. 
Both of these towns, like Napoleon, were of the tempera- 
ment of which I am most fond — nebulous, speculative, 
dreamy. You could tell by their very looks that that 
definite commercial sense which was so marked in places 
farther East was not here abounding. They v/ere still, 
as at Warsaw in my day, outside the keen, shrill whip of 
things. Everyone was not strutting around with the all- 
too-evident feeling that they must get on. ( I hate greedy, 
commercial people.) Things were drifting in a slow, 
romantic, speculative way. Actually I said to Franklin, 
and he will bear witness to it, that now we were in the 
exact atmosphere which was most grateful to me. I 
looked on all the simple little streets, the one and a half 
story houses with sloping roofs, the rows of good trees 
and unfenced lawns, and wished and wished and wished. 
If one only could go back — supposing one could — unreel 
like a film, and then represent one's life to oneself. What 
elisions would we not make, and what extensions I Some 



ACROSS THE BORDER OF BOYLAND 267 

incidents I would make so much more perfect than they 
were — others would not be in the film at all. 

In Defiance we all indulged in shaves, shoe shines, 
drinks. As we were nearing Hicksville we overtook two 
farmers — evidently brothers, on a load of hay. It was 
so beautiful, the charm of the land so great, that we were 
all in the best of spirits. To the south of us was a little 
town looking like one of those villages in Holland which 
you see over a wide stretch of flat land, a distant church 
spire or windmill being the most conspicuous object any- 
where. Here it was a slate church steeple and a red 
factory chimney that stood up and broke the sky line. It 
was fairyland with a red sun, just sinking below the 
horizon, the trees taking on a smoky harmony in the 
distance. Spirals of gnats were in the air, and we were 
on one of those wonderful brick roads I have previously 
mentioned, running from Defiance to Hicksville, as 
smooth and picturesque to view as an old Dutch tile oven. 
Once we stopped the car to listen to the evening sounds, 
the calls of farmers after pigs, the mooing of cows, the 
rasping of guinea hens, and the last faint twitterings of 
birds and chickens. That evening hush, with a tinge of 
cool in the air, and the fragrant emanation of the soil 
and trees, was upon us. It needed only some voice singing 
somewhere, I thought, or the sound of a bell, to make it 
complete. And even those were added. 

As we were idling so, these two farmers came along 
seated on a load of hay, making a truly Ruysdaelish pic- 
ture in the amethyst light. We made sure to greet them. 

"What town is that one there?" Franklin inquired, 
jovially. 

"Squiresburg," the driver replied, grinning. His 
brother was sitting far back on the hay. 

"This is the road to Hicksville all right, isn't it?" I 
put in. 

"Yes, this is the road," he returned. 

"How large a place is Squiresburg, anyhow?" I 
queried. 

"Oh, seven or eight hundred." 



268 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

"And how big is Hicksville?" 

"Oh, two or three thousand." 

"But Squiresburg's a better place than Hicksville," 
put in the brother, who sat behind, chewing a stalk of hay 
and smiling broadly. 

"How's that?" inquired Franklin. 

The fellow's manner was contagious. 

"Oh, they're not as hard on yuh over in Squiresburg as 
they are in Hicksville." He munched his straw sugges- 
tively. "Y' kin have a better time there." 

He smiled again, most elusively. 

"Oh, this," said Speed, quickly, forming his fingers into 
a cup and upending it before his lips. 

"That's it," said the man. "There ain't no license in 
Hicksville." 

"Alas I" I exclaimed. "And we're bound for Hicks- 
ville." 

"Well, tain't too late," said the man in front. 
"There's Squiresburg right over there." 

"I'm afraid, I'm afraid," I sighed, and yet the thought 
came to me what a fine thing it would be to turn aside 
here and loaf in Squiresburg in one of its loutish country 
saloons, say, until midnight, seeing what might happen. 
The Dutch inns of Jan Steen were somehow in my mind. 
But just the same we didn't. Those things must be taken 
on the jump. An opportunity to be a success must pro- 
voke a spontaneous burst of enthusiasm. This suggestion 
of theirs, if it appealed to the others, provoked no vocal 
acquiescence. We smiled at them approvingly, and then 
rode on, only to comment later on what an adventure it 
might have proved — how rurally revealing. 

As we entered Hicksville the lamps were being 
trimmed in a cottage or two, and I got a sense once more 
of the epic that life is day after day, year after year, cen- 
tury after century, cycle after cycle. Poets may come 
and poets may go, a Gray, a Goldsmith, a Burns in every 
generation, but this thing which they seek to interpret 
remains forever. A Daubigny, a Corot, a Ruysdael, a 
Vermeer, all American born, might well interpret this 



ACROSS THE BORDER OF BOYLAND 269 

from generation to generation. It would never tire. 
Passing up this simple village street, with its small cot- 
tages on every hand, I could not help thinking of what a 
Monticelli or an Inness would make it. The shadows 
at this hour were somewhat flamboyant, like those in 
"The Night Watch." A sprinkling of people in the two 
blocks which comprised the heart of things was Rem- 
brandtish in character. Positively, it was a comfort now 
to know that Franklin was with me, and that subsequently 
he would register this or something like it either in pen 
and ink or charcoal. It was so delightful to me in all its 
rural naivete and crudity, that I wanted to sing about it 
or sit down in some corner somewhere and rhapsodize 
on paper. As it was, after exchanging a few words with 
a farmer who wanted to hear the story of our tour, we 
went to look for some picture postcards of Hicksville, 
and then to get something to eat. 

It would seem at times as if life needed not so much 
action as atmosphere — certainly not action of any vigor- 
ous character — to make it transcendently pleasing. In- 
sofar as I could see, there was no action in this town 
worthy of the name. Indeed, the people seemed to me 
to be of a lackadaisical turn, rurals of a very simple and 
unpretentious character, and, for the most part, as to 
the men, of an uncouth and workaday aspect. Many of 
them were of the stuff of which railroad hands are made, 
only here with the farm lands and the isolation of country 
life to fall back on, they were not so sophisticated. 

The country lunch room which we encountered amused 
us all from one point of view and another. It was so 
typically your male center of rural life, swarming with 
all the wits and wags of the community and for miles 
around. Here raw yokels and noisy pretenders were eat- 
ing, playing cards, pool, billiards, and indulging in rural 
wit, and we heard all the standard jests of country life. 
I gained the impression that the place had once been a 
barroom before the no-license limitation had descended 
upon it, and that many of its former patrons were mak- 
ing the best of the new conditions. 



470 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

And here it was that for the first time in my life I tasted 
banana pie. Did you ever eat banana pie? Weill The 
piece I had here, in lieu of apple for which I inquired, a 
quarter section, with a larger layer of meringue on top, 
filled a long felt want and a void. It made up for the 
fact that I had to content myself with a ham sandwich 
and two fried eggs. It was thick — all of an inch and a 
half — and very pastryish. I asked the clerk (I cannot 
conscientiously call him a waiter) if he knew how to make 
it, but he did not. And I have been seeking ever since for 
a recipe as good as that from which this pie was made. 

Next door to this restaurant was the Hotel Swilley — 
mark the name — and farther up the street, "Mr. and 
Mrs. C. J. Holmes, Undertaker." In the one drug and 
book and stationery store, where the only picture post- 
cards we could find were of the depot and the "residence 
of N. C. Giffen," whoever he might be, several very 
young girls, "downtown for a soda," were calling up some 
other girl at home. 

"Hello, Esther! Is this you, Esther? Well, don't you 
know who this is, Esther? Can't you tell? Oh, listen, 
Esther! Listen to my voice. Now can't you tell, Esther? 
I thought you could. It's Etta, of course. Wait a min- 
ute, Esther, Mabel wants to speak to you. Well, good- 
bye, Esther." (This last after Mabel had spoken to 
much the same effect as Etta.) 

After idling about in what seemed an almost Saturday 
night throng, so chipper and brisk was it, we made our 
way to Fort Wayne. It was a brisk, cool ride. The 
moon was on high, very clear, and a light wind blowing 
which made overcoats comfortable. Just outside Hicks- 
ville we encountered another detour, which shut us off 
from our fine road and enraged us so that we decided to 
ignore the sign warning us to keep out under penalty of 
the law and to go on anyhow. There seemed a good road 
ahead in spite of the sign, and so we deliberately sepa- 
rated the boards on posts which barred the way and 
sped on. 

But the way of the transgressor — remember ! Scarcely 



ACROSS THE BORDER OF BOYLAND ayi 

a mile had gone before the road broke into fragments, 
partially made passable by a filling of crushed stone, but 
after that it swiftly degenerated into mud, rubble and 
ruts, and we began to think we had made a dreadful mis- 
take. Supposing we were stalled here and found? What 
would become of my trip to Indiana I Fined and de- 
tained, Franklin might get very much out of sorts and 
not care to go on. Oh, dear! Oh, dear I 

We bumped along over rocks and stumps in the most 
uncomfortable fashion. The car rocked like a boat on a 
helter-skelter at Coney Island. Finally we came to a 
dead stop and looked into our condition, fore and aft. 
Things were becoming serious. Perspiration began to 
flow and regrets for our sinful tendencies to exude, when, 
in the distance, the fence at the other end appeared. 

Immediately we cheered up. Poof! What was a 
small adventure like this? — a jolly lark, that was all. 
Who wouldn't risk a car being stuck in order to achieve 
a cutoff like this and outwit the officers of the law? One 
had to take a sporting chance always. Why certainly 1 
Nevertheless, I secretly thanked God or whatever gods 
there be, and Franklin and Speed looked intensely re- 
lieved. We jogged along another eight hundred feet, tore 
down the wire screen at the other end, and rushed on — a 
little fearfully, I think, since there was a farm house 
near at hand with a lot of road-making machinery in the 
yard. Perhaps it was the home of the road foreman! 
I hope he doesn't ever read this book, and come and 
arrest us. Or if he does I hope he only arrests Franklin 
and Speed. On reflection a month or so in jail would not 
hurt them any, I think. 

And then, after an hour or so, the city of Fort Wayne 
appeared in the distance. It does not lie on high ground, 
or in a hollow, but the presence of some twenty or thirty 
of those antiquated light towers which I mentioned as 
having been installed at Evansville, Indiana, in 1882, 
and which were still in evidence here, gave it that ap- 
pearance. It seemed at first as though this town must 
be on a rise and we looking up at it from a valley; as we 



272 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

drew nearer, as though It were in a valley and we looking 
down from a height. We soon came to one of those pre- 
tentious private streets, so common in the cities of the 
West in these days — a street with a great gate at either 
end, open and unguarded and set with a superfluity of 
lights; which arrangement, plus houses of a certain grade 
of costliness, give that necessary exclusiveness the newly 
rich require, apparently. It was quite impressive. And 
then we came to a place where, quite in the heart of the 
city, two rivers, the St. Mary and the St. Joseph, joined 
to make the Maumee; and here, most intelligently, I 
thought, a small park had been made. It was indeed 
pleasing. And then we raced into the unescapable Main 
Street of the cit\', in this instance a thoroughfare so blaz- 
ing with lights that I was much impressed. One would 
scarcely see more light on the Great White Way in New 
York. 



CHAPTER XXXIV 

A MIDDLE WESTERN CROWD 

Though a city of seventyfive thousand, or there- 
abouts, Fort Wayne made scarcely any impression upon 
me. Now that I was back in Indiana and a few miles 
from my native heath, as it were, I expected, or perhaps 
I only half imagined, that I might gain impressions and 
sensations commensurate with my anticipations. But I 
didn't. This was the city, or town, as it was then, to 
which my parents had originally traveled after their mar- 
riage in Dayton, Ohio, and where my father worked in a 
woolen mill as foreman, perhaps, before subsequently be- 
coming its manager. It had always been a place of in- 
terest, if not happy memory, to my mother, who seemed 
to feel that she had been very happy here. 

When our family, such as it was (greatly depleted by 
the departure of most of the children), came north to 
Warsaw, Fort Wayne, so much nearer than Chicago and 
a city of forty thousand, was the Mecca for the sporting 
youth of our town. To go to Fort Wayne! What a 
\veek end treat! For most of our youth who had suffi- 
cient means to travel so far, it was a city of great adven- 
ture. The fare was quite one dollar and seventyfive 
cents for the round trip, and only the bloods and sports, 
as we knew them, attempted it. I never had money 
enough to go, as much as I wanted to, nor yet the friends 
who were eager for my companionship. 

But what tales did I not hear of restaurants, saloons, 
theatres, and other resorts of pleasure visited, and what 
veiled hints were not cast forth of secret pleasures in- 
dulged in — flirtations, if not more vigorous escapades. 
Life was such a phantasm of delight to me then. Name- 
less and formless pleasures danced constantly before my 

273 



274 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

eyes. Principally, not quite entirely, they were connected 
with the beauty of girls, though money and privilege and 
future success were other forms. And there were a few 
youths and some girls in Warsaw, who to my inexperi- 
enced judgment, possessed nearly all that life had to 
offer! 

At this late date, however. Fort Wayne, looking at it 
in the cold, practical light of a middle-aged automobile 
tourist, offered but few titillations, either reminiscent or 
otherwise. Here it was, to me, sacred ground, and here 
had these various things occurred, yet as I viewed it now 
it seemed a rather dull, middle West town, with scarcely 
anything save a brisk commerce to commend it. Abroad 
one finds many cities of the same size of great interest, 
historically and architecturally — but here! By night and 
day it seemed bright enough, and decidedly clean. All 
that I could think of as Franklin and I drifted about it 
on this first night was that it was a very humble copy of 
every other larger American city in all that it attempted 
— streets, cabarets, high buildings and so on. Every 
small city in America desires to be like Chicago or New 
York or both, to reproduce what is built and done in these 
places — the most obvious things, I mean. 

After dining at a cabaret Hofbrau House and sleeping 
in a very comfortable room which admitted the clangor 
of endless street car bells, however, I awoke next morn- 
ing with a sick stomach and a jaded interest in all ma- 
terial things, and I had neither eaten nor drunk much of 
anything the night before — truly, truly! We had sought 
out the principal resort and sat in it as a resource against 
greater boredom, nothing more. And now, being with- 
out appetite, I wandered forth to the nearest drug store 
to have put up the best remedy I know for a sick stomach 
— nux vomica and gentian, whatever that may be. 

It was in this drug store that the one Interesting thing 
in Fort Wayne occurred — at least to me. There were, 
as it was still early, a negro sweeping the place, and one 
clerk, a lean apothecary with roached and pointed hair, 
who was concealed in some rear room. He came forward 



A MIDDLE WESTERN CROWD 275 

after a time, took my prescription, and told me I would 
have to wait ten minutes. Later another man hobbled in, 
a creature who looked like the "before" picture of a 
country newspaper patent medicine advertisement. He 
was so gaunt and blue and sunken-seamed as to face that 
he rather frightened me, as if a corpse should walk into 
your room and begin to look around. His clothes were 
old and brown and looked as though they had been worn 
heaven knows what length of time. The clerk came out, 
and he asked for something the name of which I did not 
catch. Presently the clerk came back with his prescrip- 
tion and mine, and going to him and putting down a bot- 
tle and a box of pills, said of the former, holding it up, 
"Now this is for your blood. You understand, do you? 
You take this three times a day, every day until it is 
gone." The sick man nodded like an automaton. "And 
these" — he now held up the pills — "are for your bowels. 
You take two o' these every night." 

"This is for my blood and these are for my bowels," 
said the man slowly. 

The nostrums were wrapped up very neatly in grey 
paper, and tied with a pink string. The corpse extracted 
out of a worn leather book sixtyfive cents in small pieces, 
and put them down. Then he shuffled slowly out. 

"What ails him, do you suppose?" I asked of the dap- 
per, beau-like clerk. 

"Oh, chronic ansemia. He can't live long." 

"Will that medicine do him any good, do you think?" 

"Not a bit. He can't live. He'll all worn out. But 
he goes to some doctor around here and gets a prescrip- 
tion and we have to fill it. If we didn't, someone else 
would.". 

He smiled on me most genially. 

What a shame to take his money, I thought. He looks 
as though food or decent clothes would be better for him, 
but what might one say? I recalled how when I was 
young and chronically ailing, how eagerly I clung to the 
thought of life, and would I not now if I were in his 
place? Here was I with a prescription of my own in my 



276 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

hand which I scarcely touched afterwards. But how near 
to his grave that man really was. And how futile and 
silly that advice about his blood sounded! 

Without any special interest in Fort Wayne to delay 
us, and without any desire to see or do anything in par- 
ticular, we made finally that memorable start for War- 
saw toward which I had been looking ever since I stepped 
into the car in New York. Now in an hour or two or 
three, at the best, I would be seeing our old home, or one 
of them, at least, and gazing at the things which of all 
things identified with my youth appealed to me most. 
Here I had had my first taste of the public school as op- 
posed to the Catholic or parochial school, and a delightful 
change it was. Warsaw was so beautiful, or seemed to 
me so at the time, a love of a place, with a river or small 
stream and several lakes and all the atmosphere of a pros- 
perous and yet homey and home-loving resort. My 
mother and father and sisters and brothers were so inter- 
esting to me in those days. As in the poem of Davidson's, 

"The sounding cities, rich and warm 
Smouldered and glittered in the plain." 

I was thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen. The sun and 
the air and some responsive chemistry which I do not 
understand were making my blood into wine. Would I 
now be dreadfully disappointed? 

Our way lay through a country more or less familiar 
as to its character, though I had never actually been 
through it except on a train. All about were small towns 
and lakes which I had heard of but never visited. Now 
it was my privilege to see them if I chose, and I felt very 
much elated over it all. I was interested, amused, curi- 
osity stirred. 

But it was not until we reached Columbia City, only 
twenty miles from Warsaw, that my imagination was 
keenly aroused. Columbia City, small as it was, say fifteen 
or eighteen hundred at that time, and not much larger 
now, was another spot to which our small-town hfe-seek- 









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A MIDDLE WESTERN CROWD 277 

Ing gadabouts were wont to run on a Saturday night — for 
what purpose I scarcely know, since I never had sufficient 
means to accompany them. At that time, in that vigor- 
ously imaginative period, I conjured up all sorts of syba- 
ritic delights, as being the end and aim of these expedi- 
tions, since the youths who comprised them were so keen 
in regard to all matters of sex. They seemed to be able 
to think of nothing else, and talked girls, girls, girls 
from morning to night, or made sly references to these 
jaunts which thereby became all the more exciting to me. 
Warsaw at that time was peculiarly favored with a bevy 
of attractive girls who kept all our youths on the qui vive 
as to love and their favor. With an imagination that 
probably far outran my years, I built up a fancy as to 
Columbia City which far exceeded its import, of course. 
To me it was a kind of Cairo of the Egyptians, with two 
horned Hathor in the skies, and what breaths of palms 
and dulcet quavers of strings and drums I know not. 

These youths, who were quite smart and possessed of 
considerable pocket money, much more than I ever had 
or could get, would not have me as a companion. I was 
a betwixt and between soul at that time, not entirely de- 
barred from certain phases of association and compan- 
ionship with youths somewhat older than myself, and 
yet never included in these more private and intimate ad- 
ventures to which they were constantly referring. They 
kept me on tenter hooks, as did the ravishing charms of so 
many girls about us, without my ever being satisfied. Be- 
sides, from this very town had come a girl to our War- 
saw High School whom I used to contemplate with ador- 
ing eyes, she was so rounded and pink and gay. But 
that was all it ever came to, just that — I contemplated 
her from afar. I never had the courage to go near her. 
In the presence of most girls, especially the attractive 
ones, I was dumb, frozen by a nameless fear. 

So this place, now we reached it, had interest to this 
extent, that I wanted to see what it was like although I 
really knew — courthouse, courthouse square, surround- 
ing stores, and then a few streets with simple homes and 



278 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

churches. Exactly. It was like all the others, only 
somewhat poorer — not so good as Napoleon, Ohio, or 
even Hicksville. 

But there was something that was much better than 
anything we had encountered yet — an Old Settler's Day, 
no less — which had filled the streets with people and 
wagons and the public square with tents, for resting 
rooms, had spread table cloths out on the public lawn for 
eating, while a merry-go-round whirled in the middle of 
one street, and various tents and stands on several sides 
of the square were crowded with eatables and drinkables 
of sorts. I believe they have dubbed these small aisles of 
tents a "Broadway," in the middle West. Of course, 
there were popcorn, candy, hot "weenies," as sausages are 
known hereabouts, and lemonade. I never saw a more 
typically rural crowd, nor one that seemed to get more 
satisfaction out of its modest pleasures. 
. But the very old farmers and their wives, the old set- 
tlers and settleresses and their children and their grand- 
children, and their great grandchildren! Life takes on 
at once comic and yet poetic and pathetic phases the mo- 
ment you view a crowd of this kind in the detached way 
that we were doing it. Here were men and women so 
old and worn and bent and crumpled by the ageing proc- 
esses of life that they looked like the yellow leaves of the 
autumn. Compared with the fresh young people who 
were to be seen spinning about on the merry-go-round, 
or walking the streets in twos and threes, they were in- 
finitely worn. Such coats and trousers, actually cut and 
sewn at home! And such hats and whiskers and canes 
and shoes! I called Franklin's attention to two stocky, 
pinky rustics wearing Charlie Chaplin hats and carrying 
Charlie Chaplin canes, and then to group after group of 
men and women so astonishing that they seemed figures 
out of some gnome or troll world, figures so distorted as 
to seem only fit fancies for a dream. We sat down by 
one so weird that he seemed the creation of a genius bent 
on depicting age. I tried to strike up a conversation, but 
he would not. He did not seem to hear. I began to 



A MIDDLE WESTERN CROWD 279 

whisper to Franklin concerning the difference between a 
figure like this and those aspirations which we held in our 
youth concerning "getting on." Life seems to mock it- 
self with these walking commentaries on ambition. Of 
what good are the fruits of earthly triumph anyhow? 

Nearly all of the older ones, to add to their pictur- 
esqueness, wore bits of gold lettered cloth which stated 
clearly that they were old settlers. They stalked or hob- 
bled or stood about talking in a mechanical manner. 
They rasped and cackled — "grandthers," "gaffers," "Po- 
lichinelles," "Pantaloons." I had to smile, and yet if 
the least breath of the blood mood of sixteen were to 
return, one would cry. 

And then came the younger generations ! I wish those 
who are so sure that democracy is a great success and 
never to be upset by the cunning and self-interestedness 
of wily and unscrupulous men, would make a face to face 
study of these people. I am in favor of the dream of 
democracy, on whatever basis it can be worked out. It 
is an ideal. But how, I should like to ask, is a prole- 
tariat such as this, and poorer specimens yet, as we all 
know, to hold its own against the keen, resourceful oli- 
garchs at the top? Certainly ever since I have been in the 
world, I have seen nothing but Americans who were so 
sure that the people were fit to rule, and did rule, and that 
nothing but the widest interests of all the people were 
ever really sought by our statesmen and leaders in vari- 
ous fields. The people are all right and to be trusted. 
They are capable of understanding their public and pri- 
vate affairs in such a manner as to bring the greatest 
happiness to the greatest number — but are they? I was 
taught this in the adjacent schools of Warsaw, quite as 
I was taught that the Christian ideal was right and true, 
and that it really prevailed in life, and that those who did 
not agree with it were thieves and scoundrels. Actually, 
I went into life from this very region believing largely in 
all this, only to find by degrees that this theory had no 
relationship to the facts. Life was persistently demon- 
strating to me that self-interest and only self-interest 



28o A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

ruled — that strength dominated weakness, that large 
ideas superseded and ruled small ones, and so on and so 
forth, ad infinitum. It was interesting and even aston- 
ishing to find that we were not only being dominated 
mentally by a theory that had no relationship to life 
whatsoever, but that large, forceful brains were even 
then plotting the downfall of the republic. Big minds 
were ruling little ones, big thoughts superseding little 
ones. The will to power was in all individuals above the 
grade of amoeba, and even there. All of us were mouth- 
ing one set of ideas and acting according to a set of in- 
stincts entirely opposed to our so called ideas. I, for one, 
was always charging individuals with failing to live up to 
the Christian idea and its derived moral code, whereas 
no detail of the latter affected my own conduct in the 
least. 

Looking at this crowd of people here in the streets of 
Columbia City, I was more affected by their futility and 
pathos — life's futility and pathos for the mass — than by 
anything else so far. What could these people do, even 
by banding together, to control the giants at the top? 
Here they were, entertained like babies by the most pa- 
thetic toys — a badge, a little conversation, a little face- 
to-face contemplation of other futilitarians as badly 
placed as themselves. The merry-go-round was spinning 
and grinding out a wheezy tune. I saw young girls sit- 
ting sidewise of wooden horses, lions and the like, their 
dresses (because of the short skirt craze) drawn to the 
knee, or nearly so. Imagine the storm which would 
have ensued in my day had any girl dared to display 
more than an ankle I (Custom! Custom!) About 
it were small boys and big boys and big girls, for 
the most part too poor to indulge in its circular madness 
very often, who were contenting themselves with con- 
templating the ecstasy of others. 

"Franklin," I said, "you were raised out in this region 
about the time I was. How would such a spectacle as 
that have been received in our day?" ( I was referring to 



A MIDDLE WESTERN CROWD 281 

the exhibition of legs, and I was very pleased with it as 
such, not quarreling with it at all.) 

"Oh, shocking," he replied, smiling reminiscently, "it 
just wouldn't have occurred." 

"And how do you explain its possibility now? These 
people are just as religious, aren't they?" 

"Nearly so — but fashion, fashion, the mass love of 
imitation. If the mass want to do it and can find an ex- 
cuse or permission in the eyes of others, or even if they 
don't want to do it, but their superiors do, they will suffer 
it. I haven't the slightest doubt but that there is many 
a girl sitting on a wooden horse in there who would 
rather not have her skirt pulled up to her knees, but since 
others do it she does it. She wants to be 'in the swim.' 
And she'd rather be unhappy or a little ashamed than 
not be in the swim. Nothing hurts like being out of 
style, you know, especially out in the country these days 
— not even the twinges of a Puritan conscience." 

"Franklin," I said, "I'll tell you. You were raised on 
a farm and know farmer boys at sight. Pick me out a 
farmer's boy here and now, who hasn't money enough to 
ride in this thing, and I'll give him a dime. We'll see 
how he takes it." 

Franklin smiled and looked around carefully. The 
thing interested him so much that he finally circled the 
merry-go-round and lighted on one youth whose short 
pants and ungainly shoes and cheap but clean little dotted 
shirt and small fifteen or twentyfive cent hat and pink 
cheeks, as well as his open mouth and rapt attention, in- 
dicated that here was a wonder with which he was thor- 
oughly unfamiliar. I waited to see if he would step 
aboard at the next stop of the car, or the next, but no, he 
was merely an onlooker. At the next start of the car or 
platform I watched his eager eyes follow those who got 
on. It was pathetic, and when the merry-go-round 
started again he gazed aloft at the whirling thing in an 
ecstasy of delight. As it was slowing down for the sec- 
ond or third time, preparatory to taking on a new load, I 
reached over his shoulder and quite unheeded, at first, 



282 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

put a quarter before his eyes. For a moment he stopped 
quite dazed and looked at it, then at me, then at the 
quarter, then at me. 

"Go on! Ride!" I commanded. "Get on!" The 
carousel was almost still. 

Suddenly, with a mixture of reverence, awe, and a 
world of surprise in his eyes, he seemed to comprehend 
what I meant. He looked at his shabby father who had 
been standing near him all this while, but finding him in- 
terested in other things, clambered aboard. I watched 
him take his place beside a horse, not on it. I watched it 
start with almost as much pleasure as came to him, I 
think. Then as the speed increased, I turned to urge 
Franklin to photograph two old men, who were near. 
They were so wonderful. We were still at that when the 
machine stopped, only I did not notice. I was watching the 
two old men. All at once I saw this boy making his way 
through the crowd. He had his hand out before him, 
and as he reached me he opened it and there were the 
four nickels change. 

"Oh, no," I said. "I didn't mean you to give them 
back. Run quick! Ride again! Get on before it starts 
again." 

I can see those round, surprised blue eyes with the un- 
certain light of vague comprehension and happiness In 
them. He could scarcely make it out. 

"Run quick," I said. "Ride four times, or do any- 
thing you please." 

His eyes seemed to get rounder and bigger for a sec- 
ond, then his hand wavered, and the hungry fingers shut 
tight on the money. He ran. 

"How's that for getting a thousand dollars' worth of 
fun for a nickel, Franklin?" I inquired. 

"Right-o," he replied. "We ought to be ashamed to 
take it." 

And it was literally true, so subtle are the ways by 
which one can come by what does not belong to him, even 
though partially paid for. 



CHAPTER XXXV 

WARSAW AT last! 

Getting to Warsaw was a matter of an hour or so at 
most from here. I think my principal sensation on en- 
tering Indiana and getting thus far was one of disappoint- 
ment that nothing had happened, and worse, nothing 
could happen. From here on it was even worse. It is 
all very well to dream of revisiting your native soil and 
finding at least traces, if no more, of your early world, 
but I tell you it is a dismal and painful business. Life is 
a shifting and changing thing. Not only your own 
thoughts and moods, but those of all others who endure, 
undergo a mighty alteration. Houses and landscapes 
and people go by and return no more. The very land 
itself changes. All that is left of what you were, or of 
what was, in your own brain, is a dwindling and spindling 
thing. 

Not many miles out from Warsaw, we passed through 
the town of Pierceton, where lived two girls I barely 
knew at school, and here we picked up a typical Hoosier, 
who, because we asked the road of the principal store- 
keeper, volunteered to ride along and show us. "I'm 
going for a couple of miles in that direction. If you don't 
mind I'll get in and show you." 

Franklin welcomed him. I objected to the shrewd type, 
a cross between a country politician and a sales agent, who 
manages his errands in this way, but I said nothing. He 
made himself comfortable alongside Speed and talked to 
him principally the small change of country life. 

As we sped along I began to feel an ugly resentment 
toward all life and change, and the driving, destroying 
urge of things. The remorselessness of time, how bit- 
terly, irritatingly clear it stood out here! We talk about 

283 



284 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY - 

the hardness and cruelty of men ! Contrast their sharpest, 
most brutal connivings with the slow, indifferent sapping 
of strength and hope and joy which nature practices upon 
each and every one of us. See the utter brutality with 
which every great dream is filched from the mind, all the 
delicate, tendril-like responsiveness of youth is taken 
away, your friends and pleasures and aspirations slain. I 
looked about me, and beginning to recognize familiar soil, 
such as a long stretch of white road ending in an old ice 
house, a railroad track out which I had walked, felt a 
sudden, overpowering, almost sickening depression at the 
lapse of time and all that had gone with it. Thirty years, 
nearly, had passed and with them all the people and all 
the atmosphere that surrounded them, or nearly so, and 
all my old intimacies and loves and romantic feelings. 
A dead world like this is such a compound — a stained- 
glass window at its best; a bone yard at its worst. 

Approaching Warsaw after thirty years, my mind was 
busy gathering up a thousand threads long since fallen 
and even rotting in the grass of time. Here was the 
place, I said to myself, where we, the depleted portion 
of our family that constituted "we" at the time, came to 
stabilize our troubled fortunes and (it was my mother's 
idea) to give the three youngest children, of whom I was 
one, an opportunity to get a sensible American free school 
education. Hitherto our family (to introduce a little 
private history) had been more or less under the domina- 
tion of my dogmatic father, who was a Catholic and a 
bigot. I never knew a narrower, more hidebound re- 
ligionist, nor one more tender and loving in his narrow 
way. He was a crank, a tenth rate Saint Simon or Fran- 
cis of Assisi, and yet a charming person if it had been 
possible to get his mind off the subject of religion for 
more than three seconds at a time. He worked, ate, 
played, slept and dreamed religion. With no other 
thought than the sanctity and glory and joy of the Catho- 
lic Church, he was constantly attempting to drive a de- 
cidedly recalcitrant family into a similar point of view. 

In the main (there were ten of us living) we would 



WARSAW AT LAST! 285 

none of it. The majority, by some trick of chemistry 
which produces unheard of reactions in the strangest 
manner (though he and, to a much less extent, my mother, 
were religiously minded) were caught fast by the ma- 
terial, unreligious aspect of things. They were, one and 
all, mastered by the pagan life stream which flows fresh 
and clean under all our religions and all our views, mor- 
alistic and otherwise. It will have none of the petty, 
narrowing traps and gins wherewith the mistaken proc- 
esses of the so-called minds of some would seek to enslave 
it. Life will not be boxed in boxes. It will not be 
wrapped and tied up with strings and set aside on a shelf 
to await a particular religious or moral use. As yet we 
do not understand life, we do not know what it Is, what 
the laws are that govern it. At best we see ourselves 
hobbling along, responding to this dream and that lust 
and unable to compel ourselves to gainsay the fires and 
appetites and desires of our bodies and minds. Some of 
these, in some of us, strangely enough (and purely ac- 
cidentally, of that I am convinced) conform to the cur- 
rent needs or beliefs of a given society; and if we should 
be so fortunate as to find ourseK cs in that society, we are 
by reason of these ideals, favorites, statesmen, children of 
fortune, poets of the race. On the other hand, others of 
us who do not and cannot conform (who are left-over 
phases of ancient streams, perhaps, or portentous strise 
of new forces coming into play) are looked upon as hor- 
rific, and to be stabilized, or standardized, and brought 
into the normal systole-diastole of things. Those of us 
endowed with these things in mind and blood are truly 
terrible to the mass — pariahs, failures, shams, disgraces. 
Yet life is no better than its worst elements, no worse 
than its best. Its perfections are changing temporalities, 
illusions of perfection that will be something very differ- 
ent tomorrow. Again I say, we do not know what life is 
— not nearly enough to set forth a fixed code of any kind, 
religious or otherwise. But we do know that it sings and 
stings, that it has perfections, entrancements, shames — 
each according to his blood flux and its chemical char- 



286 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

acter. Life is rich, gorgeous, an opium eater's dream of 
sometliing paradisiacal — but it is never the thin thing 
that thin blood and a weak, ill nourished, poorly respond- 
ing brain would make it, and that is where the majority 
of our religions, morals, rules and safeguards come from. 
From thin, petered out blood, and poor, nervous, non- 
commanding weak brains. 

Life is greater than anything we know. 

It is stronger. 

It is wilder. 

It is more horrible. 

It is more beautiful. 

We need not stop and think we have found a solution. 
We have not even found a beginning. We do not know. 
And my patriotic father wanted us all to believe in the 
Catholic church and the infallibility of the Pope and 
confession and communion ! 

Great Pan of the Greeks, and you, Isis of the Egyp- 
tians, save me I These moderns are all insane I 

But I was talking of the effect of the approach of 
Warsaw upon me. And I want to get back to my mother, 
for she was the center of all my experiences here. Such 
a woman I Truly, when I think of my mother I feel that 
I had best keep silent. I certainly had one of the most 
perfect mothers ever a man had. Warsaw, in fact, really 
means my mother to me, for here I first came to par- 
tially understand her, to view her as a woman and to 
know how remarkable she was. An open, uneducated, 
wondering, dreamy mind, none of the customary, con- 
scious principles with which so many conventional souls 
are afflicted. A happy, hopeful, animal mother, with a 
desire to live, and not much constructive ability where- 
with to make real her dreams. A pagan mother taken 
over into the Catholic Church at marriage, because she 
loved a Catholic and would follow her love anywhere. 
A great poet mother, because she loved fables and fairies 
and half believed In them, and once saw the Virgin Mary 
standing in our garden (this was at Sullivan) , blue robes, 



WARSAW AT LAST I 287 

crown and all, and was sure it was she! She loved the 
trees and the flowers and the clouds and the sound of the 
wind, and was wont to cry over tales of poverty almost 
as readily as over poverty itself, and to laugh over the 
mannikin fol de rols of all too responsive souls. A great 
hearted mother — loving, tender, charitable, who loved 
the ne'er do well a little better than those staid favorites 
of society who keep all laws. Her own children fre- 
quently complained of her errors and tempers (what mor- 
tal ever failed so to do?) and forgot their own beams to 
be annoyed by her motes. But at that they loved her, 
each and every one, and could not stay away from her 
very long at a time, so potent and alive she was. 

I always say I know how great some souls can be be- 
cause I know how splendid that of my mother was. 
Hail, you ! wherever you are 1 

In drawing near to Warsaw, I felt some of this as of a 
thousand other things which had been at that time and 
now were no more. 

We came in past the new outlying section of Winona, 
a region of summer homes, boat houses and casinos scat- 
tered about a lake which In my day was entirely sur- 
rounded by woods, green and still, and thence along a 
street which I found out later was an extension of the 
very street on which we had originally lived, only now 
very much lengthened to provide a road out to Winona. 
Lined on either side by the most modern of cottages, 
these new style verandaed, summer resorty things hung 
with swings and couch hammocks which one sees at all 
the modern American watering places, it was too new and 
smart to suit me exactly and carried with it no suggestion 
of anything that I had been familiar with. A little farther 
on, though, it merged into something that I did know. 
There were houses that looked as though they might 
have endured all of forty years and been the same ones I 
had known as the houses of some of my youthful com- 
panions. I tried to find the home of Loretta Brown, for 
instance, who was killed a few years later in a wreck in 



288 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

the West, and of Bertha Stillmayer, who used to hold 
my youthful fancy, at a distance. I could not find them. 
There was a church, also, at one corner, which I was 
almost sure I knew, and then suddenly, as we neared an- 
other corner, I recognized two residences. One was that 
of the principal lumber dealer of our town, a man who 
with his son and daughter and a few other families con- 
stituted the elite, and next to it, the home of the former 
owner of the principal dry goods store; very fine houses 
both of them, and suggesting by their architecture and 
the arrangement of their grounds all that at one time I 
thought was perfect — the topmost rung of taste and re- 
spectability! 

In my day these were very close to the business heart, 
but so was everything in Warsaw then. In the first and 
better one, rather that of the wealthier of the two men, 
for they were both very much alike in their physical de- 
tails, was, of all things, an automobile show room — an 
interesting establishment of its kind, made possible, no 
doubt, by the presence of the prosperous summer resort 
we had just passed. On the porch of this house and its 
once exclusive walk were exhibition tires and posters of 
the latest automobiles. In the other house, more precious 
to me still because of various memories, was the present 
home of the local Knights of Pythias, an organization I 
surely need not describe. In front of it hung a long, 
perpendicular glass sign or box, which could be lighted 
from within by incandescent globes. The lettering was 
merely "K. of P." 

In years and years I cannot recall anything giving me 
a sharper wrench. I was so surprised, although I was 
fully prepared not to be — not that I cared, really, whether 
these houses had changed or not — I didn't. But in one of 
them, the present home of the K. of P., had lived in my 
time the Yaisley family, and this family was endeared to 
me, partly by its wealth (qualify this by the inexperience 
of youth and our personal poverty) and partly by the 
presence of Dora Yaisley, the youngest daughter, who 
was a girl of about my own age, possibly younger, and 



WARSAW AT LAST I 289 

who, to me, was so beautiful that I used to dream about 
her all the time. As a matter of fact, from my fourteenth 
to my sixteenth year, from the first time I saw her until a 
long time after I had seen her no more, she was the one 
girl whose perfection I was sure of. Perhaps she would 
not be called beautiful by many. No doubt, if I could 
see her today, she would not appeal to me at all. But 
then 



CHAPTER XXXVI 

WARSAW IN 1884-6 

And right here I began to ponder on the mystery 
of association and contact, the chemistry and physics 
of transference by which a sky or a scene becomes a 
delicious presence in the human brain or the human blood, 
carried around for years in that mystic condition de- 
scribed as "a memory" and later transferred, perhaps, 
or not, by conversation, paint, music, or the written 
word, to the brains of others, there to be carried 
around again and possibly extended in ever widening 
and yet fading circles in accordance with that curious, 
so-called law (is it a law?) of the transmutation of en- 
ergy. That sounds so fine, that law of transmutation, 
and yet it makes such short work of that other fine 
palaver about the immortality of the soul. How many 
impressions have you transferred in this way? How 
much of you has gone from you in this way and died? 
A thin and pathetic end, I say, if all go on, being thinned 
and transmuted as they go. 

Warsaw was an idyllic town for a youth of my tem- 
perament and age to have been brought to just at that 
time. It was so young, vigorous and hopeful. I recall 
with never-ending delight the intense sense of beauty its 
surrounding landscape gave me, its three lakes, the Tip- 
pecanoe River, which drained two of them, the fine woods 
and roads and bathing places which lay in various direc- 
tions. People were always coming to Warsaw to shoot 
ducks in the marshes about, or to fish or summer on the 
lakes. Its streets were graced with many trees — they 
were still here in various places as we rode about today, 
and not so much larger, as I could see, than when I was 
here years before. The courthouse, new in my day, 

290 



WARSAW IN 1884-6 291 

standing in an open square and built of white Indiana 
limestone, was as imposing as ever, and, as we came upon 
it now turning a corner, it seemed a really handsome 
building, one of the few in towns of this size which I 
had seen which I could honestly say I liked. The princi- 
pal streets. Centre, Buffalo and South, were better built, 
if anything, than in my time, and actually wider than I 
had recalled them as being. They were imbued with a 
spirit not different to that which I had felt while living 
here. Only on the northwest corner of Centre and Buf- 
falo Streets (the principal street corner opposite this 
courthouse) where once had stood a bookstore, and 
next to that a small restaurant with an oyster counter, 
and next to that a billiard and pool room, the three con- 
stituting in themselves the principal meeting or loafing 
place for the idle young of all ages, the clever workers, 
school boys, clerks and what not of the entire town, and 
I presume county — all this was entirely done away with, 
and in its place was a stiff, indifferent, exclusive look- 
ing bank building of three stories in height, which gave 
no least suggestion of an opportunity for such life as we 
had known to exist here. 

Where do the boys meet now, I asked myself, and 
what boys? I should like to see. Why, this was the 
very center and axis of all youthful joy and life in my 
day. There is a kind of freemasonry of generations 
which binds together the youths of one season, plus those 
of a season or two elder, and a season or two younger. 
At this corner, and in these places, to say nothing of the 
village post office, Peter's Shoe Repairing and Shine Par- 
lor, and Moon's and Thompson's grocery stores, we of 
ages ranging from fourteen to seventeen and eighteen — 
never beyond nineteen or twenty — knew only those who 
fell within these masonic periods. To be of years not 
much less nor more than these was the sine qua non of 
happy companionship. To have a little money, to be in 
the high or common school (upper grades), to have a 
little gaiety, wit, and intelligence, to be able to think and 



292 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

talk of girls in a clever, flirtatious (albeit secretly nervous 
manner), were almost as seriously essential. 

A fellow by the name of Pierre (we always called him 
Peary) Morris ran this bookstore, which was the most 
popular meeting place of all. Here, beginning with the 
earliest days after our arrival, I recognized a sympathetic 
atmosphere, though I was somewhat too young to share 
in it. My mother (my father was still working in Terre 
Haute) placed us in what was known as the West Ward 
School. It adjoined an old but very comfortable house 
we had rented; the school yard and our yard touched. 
Here we dwelt for one year and part of another, then 
moved directly across the street, south, into an old brick 
house known as the Thralls Mansion, one of the first — 
as I understood it, actually the first — brick house to be 
built in the county years and years before. Here, in 
these two houses, we spent all the time that I was in 
Warsaw. From the frame or "old Grant house," I sal- 
lied each day to my studies of the seventh grade in the 
school next door. From the Thralls house I accompanied 
my sister Tillie each day to the high school, in the heart 
of the town, not far from this court house, where I com- 
pleted my work in the eighth grade and first year high. 
I have (in spite of the fact that I have been myself all 
these years) but a very poor conception of the type of 
youth I was, and yet I love him dearly. For one thing, 
I know that he was a dreamer. For another, somewhat 
cowardly, but still adventurous and willing, on most oc- 
casions, to take a reasonable chance. For a third, he 
was definitely enthusiastic about girls or beauty in the 
female form, and what was more, about beauty in all 
forms, natural and otherwise. What clouds meant to 
him I What morning and evening skies! What the 
murmur of the wind, the beauty of small sails on our 
lakes, birds a-wing, the color and flaunt and rhythm of 
things ! 

Walking, playing, dreaming, studying, I had finally 
come to feel myself an integral part of the group of 
youths, if not girls, who centered about this bookstore 



WARSAW IN 1884-6 293 

and this corner. Judson Morris, or Jud Morris, as we 
called him, a hunchback, and the son of the proprietor, 
was a fairly sympathetic and interesting friend. Frank 
Yaisley, the brother of Dora, and two years older; 
George Reed, since elevated to a circuit judgeship some- 
where in the West; "Mick" or Will McConnell, who died 
a few years later of lockjaw contracted by accidentally 
running a rusty nail into his foot; Harry Croxton, sub- 
sequently a mining engineer who died in Mexico and was 
buried there, and John and George Sharp, sons of the 
local flour mill owner and grandnephews of my mother; 
Rutger Miller, Orren Skiff, and various others were all 
of this group. There were still others of an older group 
who belonged to the best families and somehow seemed 
to exchange courtesies here and, in addition, members of 
a younger group than ourselves, who were to succeed us, 
as freshman class succeeds freshman class at college. 

My joy in this small world and these small groups of 
youths, and what the future held in store for us, was 
very great. As I figured it out, the whole duty of men 
was to grow, get strong, eat, drink, sleep, get married, 
have children and found a family, and so fulfill the 
Biblical injunction to "multiply and replenish the earth." 
Even at this late date I was dull to such things as fame, 
lives of artistic achievement, the canniness and subtlety 
of wealth, and all such things, although I knew from 
hearing everyone talk that one must and did get rich 
eventually if one amounted to anything at all. A per- 
fect, worldly wise dogma, but not truer, really, than any 
other dogma. 

But what a change was here, not so much materially 
as spiritually! Have you ever picked up an empty beetle 
shell at the end of the summer — that pale, transparent 
thing which once held a live and flying thing? Did it not 
bring with it a sense of transmutation and lapse — the pass- 
ing of all good things? Here was this attractive small 
town, as brisk and gay as any other, no doubt, but to me 
now how empty! Here in these streets, in the two houses 
in which we had lived, in this corner bookstore and its 



294 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

adjacent restaurant, in the West Ward and Central High 
Schools, in the local Catholic Church where mass was 
said only once a month, and in the post office, swimming 
holes, and on the lakes which surrounded us like gems, 
had been spent the three happiest years of my boyhood. 

Only the year before we came here I had been taken 
out of a Catholic school at Evansville, Indiana. The 
public school was to me like a paradise after the stern 
religiosity of this other school. Education began to 
mean something to me. I wanted to read and to 
know. There was a lovely simplicity about the whole 
public school world which had nothing binding or 
driving about it. The children were urged, coaxed, 
pleaded with — not driven. Force was a last resort, and 
rarely indulged in. Can't you see how it was that I soon 
fell half in love with my first teacher, a big, soft, pink- 
cheeked, buxom blonde, and with our home and our life 
here? 

But I was concerned now only with this corner book 
store and how it looked today. Coming out from New 
York, I kept thinking how it would look and how the 
square would look and whether there would be any of 
the old atmosphere about the schools or the lakes, or 
our two houses, or the houses of my friends, or the 
Catholic Church or anything. I wanted to see our ex- 
homes and the schools and all these things. Turning 
into the square after passing the first two houses men- 
tioned, I looked at this corner, and here was this new 
bank building and nothing more. It looked cold and 
remote. A through car of a state-wide trolley system, 
which ran all the way from Michigan City and Gary on 
Lake Michigan to Indianapolis, Evansville, Terre Haute, 
and other places in the extreme south, stood over the 
way. There had been no street car of any kind here in 
my day. The court house was the same, the store in 
which Nueweiler's clothing store used to be (and be- 
cause of Frank Nueweiler, an elderly figure in "our 
crowd," one of our rendezvous) was now a bookstore, 
the successor, really, to the one I was looking for. The 



WARSAW IN 1884-6 295 

post office had been moved to a new store building erected 
by the government. (I think in every town we passed 
we had found a new post office erected by the govern- 
ment.) The Harry Oram wagon works was in exactly 
the same position at the northwest corner of the square, 
only larger. There was no trace of Epstein's Wool, 
Hide and Tallow Exchange, which had stood on another 
corner directly across the way from the bookstore. A 
new building had replaced that. All Epstein's children 
had gone to Chicago, so a neighboring hardware clerk 
told me, and Epstein himself had died fifteen years be- 
fore. 

But what of the Yaisleys? What of the Yaisleys? I 
kept asking myself that. Where had they gone? To 
satisfy myself as to that, before going any farther, I 
went into this new bookstore in Nueweiler's old clothing 
emporium, and asked the man who waited on me while 
I selected postcards. 

"What became of the Nueweilers who used to run this 
place as a clothing store?" I asked as a feeler, before 
going into the more delicate matter of the Yaisleys. 

"Nueweiler?" he replied, with an air of slight surprise. 
"Why, he has the dry goods store at the next corner — 
Yaisley's old place." 

"Well, and what has become of Yaisley, then?" 

"Oh, he died all of twenty years ago. You must be 
quite a stranger about here." 

"I am," I volunteered. "I used to live here, but I 
haven't been here now for nearly thirty years, and that's 
why I'm anxious to know. I used to know Frank and 
Will and Dora Yaisley, and even her elder sister. Bertha, 
by sight, at least." 

"Oh, yes, Will Yaisley. There was an interesting 
case for you," he observed reminiscently. "I remember 
him, though I don't remember the others so well. I 
only came here in 1905, and he was back here then. Why, 
he had been out West by then and had come back here 
broke. His father was dead then, and the rest of the 



296 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

family scattered. He was so down and out that he hung 
around the saloons, doing odd jobs of cleaning and that 
sort of thing — and at other times laid cement sidewalks." 

"How old was he at that time, do you think?" I in- 
quired. 

"Oh, about forty, I should say." 

This unhappy end of Will Yaisley was all the more 
startling when I contrasted it with what I had known of 
him ( 1 884-1 886). Then he was a youth of twenty or 
twentyone or two, clerking in his father's store, which 
was the largest in town, and living in this fine house 
which was now a K. of P. Club. He was brisk and stocky 
and red-headed — his sister Dora had glints of red in 
her hair — and, like the rest of this family, was vain and 
supercilious. 

Aphrodite had many devotees in this simple Christian 
village. The soil of the town, its lakes and groves, 
seemed to generate a kind of madness in us all. I recall 
that during the short time I was there, there was scandal 
after scandal, and seemingly Innocent sex attractions, 
which sprang up between boys and girls whom I knew, 
ended disastrously after I had departed. One of the 
boys already referred to was found, after he was dead, to 
have left a pretty, oversexed school girl, whom I also 
knew, enceinte. The son of one of the richest land own- 
ers and a brother of a very pretty school girl who sat 
near me in first year high, was found, the year after I 
left, to have seduced a lovely tall girl with fair hair and 
blue eyes, who lived only two blocks from us. The story 
went round (it was retailed to me in Chicago) that she 
got down on her knees to him (how should anyone have 
seen her do that?) and on his refusing to marry her, 
committed suicide by swallowing poison. Her death by 
suicide, and the fact that he had been courting her, were 
true enough. I personally know of three other girls, all 
beauties, and all feverish with desire (how keen is the 
natural urge to sex!) who were easily persuaded, no 
doubt, and had to be sent away so that the scandal of 



WARSAW IN 1884-6 297 

having a child at home, without having a husband to 
v'ouch for it, might be hushed up. 

Poor, dogma-bound humanity! How painfully we 
weave our way through the mysteries, once desire has 
trapped usl 



CHAPTER XXXVII 

THE OLD HOUSE 

Dora Yaisley and her sister, insofar as I could learn 
this day, had fared no better than some of the others. 
Indeed, life had slipped along for all and made my gen- 
eration, or many of the figures in it, at least, seem like 
the decaying leaves that one finds under the new green 
shoots and foliage of a later spring. Dora had married 
a lawyer from some other town, so my gossip believed, 
but later, talking to another old resident and one who 
remembered me, I was told that she had run away and 
turned up married — to leave again and live in another 
place. As for another beauty of my day, it was said 
that she had been seen In hotels in Indianapolis and Fort 
Wayne with some man not her husband. The book man 
with whom I first talked volunteered this information. 

"But she's working now right here in Warsaw," he vol- 
unteered a little later. "If you know her, you might go 
to see her. I'm sure she'd be glad to see you. She hasn't 
any relative around now." 

"You don't say!" I exclaimed, astonished. "Is she as 
good looking as ever?" 

"No," he replied with a faint wryness of expression, 
"she's not beautiful any more. She must be over forty. 
But she's a very nice woman. I see her around here 
occasionally. She goes regularly to my church." 

After browsing here so long with this man, Franklin 
having gone to seek something else, I returned to the 
car and requested that we proceed out Centre Street to 
the second house in which we had lived — the Thralls 
Mansion — that having been the most important and the 
more picturesque of the two. On nearing it I was again 
surprised and indeed given a sharp, psychic wrench which 

298 



THE OLD HOUSE 299 

endured for hours and subsequently gave me a splitting 
headache. It was not gone, oh, no, not the formal walls, 
but everything else was. Formerly, in my day, there had 
been a large grove of pines here, with interludes, in one 
of which flourished five chestnut trees, yielding us all 
the chestnuts we could use; in another a group of orchard 
trees, apples, pears, peaches, cherries. The house itself 
stood on a slope which led down to a pond of considerable 
size, on which of a moonlight night, when our parents 
would not permit us to go farther, we were wont to skate. 
On the other side of this pond, to the southeast of it, was 
a saw and furniture mill, and about it, on at least two 
sides, were scattered dozens upon dozens of oak, walnut 
and other varieties of logs, stored here pending their 
use in the mill. Jumping logs was a favorite sport of 
all us school boys from all parts of the town — getting 
poles and leaping from pile to pile like flying squirrels. 
It was a regular Saturday morning and week day even- 
ing performance, until our mother's or sister's or broth- 
er's warning voices could be heard calling us hence. From 
my bedroom window on the second floor, I could contem- 
plate this pond and field, hear the pleasant droning of the 
saw and planes of the mill, and see the face of the town 
clock in the court house tower, lighted at night, and hear 
the voice of its bell tolling the hours regularly day and 
night. 

This house found and has retained a place in my af- 
fections which has never been disturbed by any other — 
and I have lived in many. It was so simple — two stories 
on the north side, three on the south, where the hill de- 
clined sharply, and containing eleven rooms and two 
cellar rooms, most convenient to our kitchen and dining- 
room. 

It was, as I have said, a very old house. Even when 
we took it age had marred it considerably. We had to 
replace certain window sashes and panes and fix the 
chimney and patch the roof in several places where it 
leaked. The stairs creaked. Being almost entirely sur- 
rounded by pines which sighed and whispered continu- 



300 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

ally, It was supposed to be damp but it was not. In 
grey or rainy weather the aspect of the whole place Tvas 
solemn, historic. In snowy or stormy weather, it took on 
a kind of patriarchal significance. When the wind was 
high these thick, tall trees swirled and danced in a wild 
ecstasy. When the snow was heavy they bent low with 
their majestic plumes of white. Underneath them was a 
floor of soft brown pine needles as soft and brown as 
a rug. We could gather basket upon basket of resiny 
cones with which to start our morning fires. In spring 
and summer these trees were full of birds, the grackle of 
blackbird particularly, for these seemed to preempt the 
place early in March and were inclined to fight others 
for possession. Nevertheless, robins, bluebirds, wrens 
and other of the less aggressive feathers built their nests 
here. I could always tell when spring was certainly at 
hand by the noise made by a tree full of newly arrived 
blackbirds on some chill March morning. Though snow 
might still be about, they were strutting about on the 
bits of lawn we were able to maintain between groups of 
pines, or hopping on the branches of trees, rasping out 
their odd speech. 

But now, as we rolled out my familiar street, I noted 
that the sawmill was no longer. The furniture factory 
had been converted into an electrical supply works. Fur- 
thermore, the pond at the foot of our house was filled 
up, not a trace of it remaining, and all saw logs, of course, 
long since cleaned away. Worse and worse, the pine 
grove had disappeared completely. In the front or west 
part of our premises now stood two new houses of a 
commonplace character, with considerable lawn space 
about them, but not a tree. And there had been so many 
fine ones! Furthermore, the ground about the house 
proper was stripped bare, save for one lone crab apple 
tree which stood near our north side door. It was still 
vigorous, and the ground under it was littered with 
bright red-yellow crabs which were being allowed to de- 
cay. From the front door, which once looked out upon 
a long cobble and brick walk, which ran between double 



THE OLD HOUSE 301 

rows of pine trees to our very distant gate (all gone 
now) protruded a sign which read, "Saws Filed." A 
path ran from this door southward over the very pond 
on which we used to skate! Near at hand was the "old 
Grant house" in which we had lived before we moved 
into this one, and it was still there, only it had been 
moved over closer to the school and another house 
crowded in beside it, on what was once our somewhat 
spacious lawn. The old school lawn, which once led 
down to the street that passed its gate, was gone, and 
instead this street came up to the school door, meeting 
the one which had formerly passed our house and ended 
at a stile, giving on to the school lawn. The school yard 
trees were gone, and facing the new street made of the 
old school lawn were houses. Only our old Thralls 
house remained standing as it was, on the right hand 
side. 

I can only repeat that I was psychically wrenched, al- 
though I was saying to myself that I felt no least inter- 
est in the visible scene. I had lived here, true, but what 
of it? There was this of it, that somewhere down in 
myself, far below my surface emotions and my frothy 
reasoning faculties, something was hurting. It was not 
I, exactly. It was like something else that had once 
been me and was still in me, somewhere, another person 
or soul that was grieving, but was now overlayed or shut 
away like a ghost in a sealed room. I felt /'/ the while 
I bustled about examining this and that detail. 

First I went up to the old house and walked about it 
trying to replace each detail as it was, and as I did so, 
restoring to my mind scene after scene and mood after 
mood of my younger days. What becomes of old scenes 
and old moods in cosmic substance? Here had been the 
pump, and here it was still, thank heaven, unchanged. 
Here, under a wide-armed fir which once stood here, Ed, 
Al, Tillie and I had once taken turns stirring a huge iron 
pot full of apple butter which was boiling over pine 
twigs and cones, and also gathered cones to keep it 
going. Here, also, to the right of the front door as you 



302 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

faced west, was my favorite lounging place, a hammock 
strung between two trees, where of a summer day, or 
when the weather was favorable at any time, I used to lie 
and read, looking up between times through the branches 
of the trees to the sky overhead and wondering over and 
rejoicing in the beauty of life. We were poor in the 
main, and, worse yet, because of certain early errors of 
some of the children (how many have I committed since !) 
and the foolish imaginings of my parents, my father in 
particular, we considered ourselves socially discredited. 
We hadn't done so well as some people. We weren't 
rich. Some of us hadn't been good!! But in books and 
nature, even at this age, I managed to find solace for all 
our fancied shortcomings, or nearly all, and though I 
grieved to think that we had so little of what seemed to 
give others so much pleasure, and the right to strut and 
stare, I also fancied that life must and probably did 
hold something better for me than was indicated here. 

After I had made the rounds once, Franklin sitting in 
the offing in his car and sketching the house, I knocked 
at the front door and received no answer. Finally I went 
inside and knocked at the first inside door, which orig- 
inally gave into our parlor. The place looked really 
very tatterdemalion, like an isolated Eleventh Avenue, 
New York, tenement. No one answered, but finally from 
what was formerly my sister Theresa's room, on the sec- 
ond floor, a stocky and somewhat frowsy woman of 
plainly Slavic origin put her head over the balustrade 
of the handsome old carved walnut staircase, and called, 
"Well?" 

"I beg your pardon," I said, "but once, a number of 
years ago, our family used to live in this house, and I 
have come back to look it over. Can you tell me who 
occupies it now?" 

"Well, no one family has it now," she replied pleas- 
antly on hearing of my mission. "There are four fam- 
ilies in it, two on this floor up here, one on that floor 
(indicating) and one in the basement. The people on 
the first floor rent that front room to a boarder." 



THE OLD HOUSE 303 

"A tenement!" I exclaimed to myself. 

"Well, there doesn't appear to be anyone at home 
here," I said to her. "Do you mind if I look at your 
rooms? The room at the end of the hall there was once 
my sleeping room." 

"Oh, not at all. Certainly. Certainly. Come right 
up." 

I mounted the stairs, now creakier than ever, and en- 
tered a room which in our day seemed comparatively 
well furnished. It was memorable to me because of a 
serious siege of illness which my sister, Theresa, had 
undergone there, and because of several nights in which 
I had tried to sit up and keep watch. Once from this 
room, at two in the morning, I had issued forth to find 
our family physician, an old, grey-bearded man, who, 
once I had knocked him up, came down to his door, 
lamp in hand, a long white nightgown protecting his 
stocky figure, his whiskers spreading like a sheaf of 
wheat, and demanded to know what I meant by disturb- 
ing him. 

"But, doctor," I said timorously, "she's very sick. 
She has a high fever. She asked me to beg you to come 
right away." 

"A high fever! Shucks! Wasn't I just there at four? 
Here I am, an old man, needing my sleep, and I never 
get a decent night's rest. It's always the way. As though 
I didn't know. Suppose she has a little fever. It won't 
hurt her." 

"But will you come, doctor?" I pleaded, knowing full 
well that he would, although he had begun irritably to 
close the door. 

"Yes, I'll come. Of course I'll come, though I know 
it isn't a bit necessary. You run on back. I'll be there." 

I hurried away through the dark, a little fearful of 
the silent streets, and presently he came, fussing and 
fuming at the inconsiderateness of some people. 

I always think of old Dr. WooUey as being one of 
the nicest, kindest old doctors that ever was. 

But now this room, instead of being a happy combina- 



304 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

tion of bed room and study, was a kitchen, dining room 
and living room combined. There were prints and pots 
and pans hung on the walls, and no carpet, and a big 
iron cook stove and a plain deal table and various chairs 
and boxes, all very humble and old. But the place was 
clean, I was glad to see, and the warm, August sun was 
streaming through the west windows, a cheering sight. 
I missed the sheltering pine boughs outside, and was just 
thinking "how different" and asking myself "what is 
time, anyhow" when there came up the stairs a Slavic 
workingman of small but vigorous build. He had on 
grey jean trousers and a blue shirt, and carried a bucket 
and a shovel. 

"The gentleman once lived in this house. He's come 
back to see it," explained his wife courteously. 

"Well, I suppose it's changed, eh?" he replied. 

"Oh, very much," I sighed. "I used to sleep in this 
end bedroom as a boy." 

"Well, you'll find another boy sleeping there if you 
look," he said, opening the door, and as he did so I saw 
a small, chubby, curly-haired boy of four or five snooz- 
ing on his pillow, his face turned away from the golden 
sun which poured into the room. The beauty of it 
touched me deeply. It brought back the lapse of time 
with a crash. 

How nature dashes its generations of new childhood 
against the beaches of this old, old world, I thought. 
Our little day in the sun is so short. Our tenure of the 
things of earth so brief. And we fight over land and 
buildings and position. To my host and hostess I said, 
"beautiful," and then that whimpering thing in the sealed 
room began to cry and I hurried down the stairs. 



CHAPTER XXXVIII 

DAY DREAMS 

But I could not bear to tear myself away so swiftly. 
I went round to the side door on the north side, where 
often of a morning, before going to school, or of an 
afternoon, after school, or of a Saturday or Sunday, I 
was wont to sit and rock and look out at the grass and 
trees. As I see it now, I must have been a very peculiar 
youth, a dreamer, for I loved to sit and dream all the 
while. Just outside this door was the one best patch 
of lawn we possessed, very smooth and green. In late 
October and early November days it was most wonder- 
ful to me to sit and look at the leaves falling from the 
trees and think on the recurrent spectacles of spring, sum- 
mer, autumn and winter, and wonder at the beauty and 
fragrance and hope of life. Everything was before me 
then. That is the great riches and advantage of youth. 
Experience was still to come — love, travel, knowledge, 
friends, the spectacle and stress of life. As age creeps 
on one says to one's self. Well, I will never do that any 
more — or that — or that. I did it once, but now it would 
not be interesting. The joy of its being a new thing is 
gone once and for all. 

And so now, as I looked at this door, the thought of 
all this came upon me most forcibly. I could actually 
see myself sitting there in an old rocking chair, with 
my books on my knees, waiting to hear the last school 
bell ring, which would give me just fifteen minutes in 
which to get to school. It was all so perfect. Knowledge 
was such a solution — were they not always telling me so? 
If one studied one could find out about life, I thought. 
Somebody must know. Somebody did know. Weren't 
there books here on every hand, and schools and teachers 
to teach us? 

30s 



3o6 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

And there was my mother, slipping about in her old 
grey dress working for us, for me, and wishing so wist- 
fully that life might do better for us all. What a won- 
derful woman she was, and how I really adored her — 
only I think she never quite understood me, or what I 
represented. She was so truly earnest in her efforts for 
us all, so eager for more life for each and every one. I 
can see her now with her large, round grey eyes, her 
placid face, her hopeful, wistful, tender expression 1 
Dear, dear soul! Sweet dreamer of vagrom dreams! 
In my heart is an altar. It is of jasper and chalcedony 
and set with precious stones. Before it hangs a light, 
the lamp of memory, and to that casket which holds your 
poet's soul, I offer, daily, attar and bergamot and musk 
and myrrh. As I write, you must know. As I write, 
you must understand. Your shrine is ever fragrant here. 

Inside this door, when I knocked, I found a two-room 
apartment not much better than that of my Slavic friends 
upstairs. Although the young married woman, a mere 
girl, who opened the door, spoke English plainly, she 
seemed of marked Hungarian extraction, an American 
revision of the European peasant, but with most of the 
old world worn off. I had never been familiar with this 
type in my day. There was a baby here and a clutter 
of nondescript things — colored calendars and chromos 
on the walls; clap-trap instalment-sold furniture and 
the like. I made my very best bow, which is never a 
very graceful one, and explained why I was here. The 
young woman was sympathetic. Wouldn't I come right 
in? 

"So this is the room," I said, standing in the first one. 
"My mother used to use this as a living room, and this 
(I walked into the next one, looking south over the 
vanished pond to the courthouse tower) as a sewing 
room. There was always such a fine morning light 
here." 

"Yes, there is," she replied. 

As I stood here, a host of memories crowded upon 
me. I might as well have been surrounded by spirits of 



DAY DREAMS 307 

an older day suggesting former things. There sat my 
father by that window, reading, in the morning, when he 
was not working, the Lives of the Saints; in the even- 
ing the Chicago Daily News or Die JVahrheit's Freiind, 
issued in Cincinnati, or Die JJ^aiseiifreiind, issued in Day- 
ton. A hardy, industrious man he was, so religious that 
he was ridiculous to me even at that time. He carried 
no weight with me, though he had the power and au- 
thority to make me and nearly all the others obey. I 
was aways doubtful as to just how far his temper and 
fuming rages would carry him. As for my mother, she 
usually sat in a rocking chair close to this very north 
door, which looked out on the grass, to read. Her 
favorite publications were Leslie's Magazine and Godey's 
Lady Book, or some of the newer but then not startlingly 
brilliant magazines — Scrihner's or Harper's. For my 
part I preferred Truth, or Life, or Puck, or Judge, pub- 
lications which had been introduced into our family by 
my brother Paul when we were living in Evansville. At 
this time I had found Dickens, Scott, Thackeray, Haw- 
thorne, Fielding, Defoe, and a score of others, and had 
been reading, reading, reading, swiftly and with enjoy- 
ment. Cooper, Irving and Lew Wallace ("Ben Hur" at 
least) were a part of my mental pabulum. From the 
public library I drew Dryden, Pope, Shakespeare, Her- 
rick and a dozen other English and American poets, and 
brought them here. I was so keenly interested in love 
at this time — so inoculated with the virus of the ideal in 
the shape of physical beauty — that any least passage in 
Dryden, Herrick, Pope, Shakespeare, held me as in a 
vise. I loved the beauty of girls. A face piquant in 
its delicacy, with pink cheeks, light or dark eyes, long 
lashes — how I tingled at the import of it! Girlhood rav- 
ished me. It set my brain and my blood aflame. I was 
living in some ecstatic realm which had little if anything 
in common with the humdrum life about me, and yet it 
had. Any picture or paragraph anywhere which referred 
to or hinted at love lifted me up into the empyrean. I 
was like that nun in Davidson's poem to whom the 



3o8 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

thought of how others sinned was so moving. I never 
tired of hauling out and secretly reading and rereading 
every thought and sentence that had a suggestive, poetic 
turn in relation to love. 

I can see some asinine moralist now preparing to rise 
and make a few remarks. My comment is that I despise 
the frozen, perverted religiosity which would make a sin 
of sex. Imagine the torture, the pains, the miseries 
which have ensued since self immolation has been raised 
to a virtue and a duty. Think of it — healthy animals all 
of us, or we ought to be — and it is a crime to think of 
love and sex! 



CHAPTER XXXIX 

THE KISS OF FAIR GUSTA 

Standing in this room, looking at the place where our 
open fire used to be, but which was now closed up and 
a cooking stove substituted, and at the window where I 
often sat of a morning "studying" history, physical geog- 
raphy, geography, physiology, botany, and waiting for 
breakfast, or if it were afternoon and after school, for 
dinner, I asked myself, if I could, would I restore it all 
— and my answer was unhesitatingly yes. I have seen 
a great many things in my time, done a lot of dull ones, 
suffered intense shames, disgraces and privations, but 
all taken into account and notwithstanding, I would gladly 
be born again and do it all over, so much have I loved 
the life I have been permitted to live. Here, at this 
time, I was suffering from a boyish bashfulness which 
made me afraid of every girl. I was following this 
girl and that, nearly every beautiful one of my own age, 
with hungry eyes, too timid to speak, and yet as much 
as I longed and suffered on that account, I now said to 
myself I would gladly have it all back. I asked myself 
would I have mother and father, and my sisters and 
brothers, and all our old relatives and friends back as 
I knew them here, and my answer was, if it would not be 
an injustice to them, and if I could be as I was then and 
stand in the same unwitting relationship, yes. Life was 
intensely beautiful to me here. For all its drawbacks of 
money and clothes and friends it was nearly perfect. I 
was all but too happy, ecstatic, drunk with the spirit of 
all young and new things. If I were to have even more 
pain than I had, I think I would undertake it all gladly 
again. 

The woman who permitted me to linger in these two 

309 



3IO A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

rooms a few minutes informed me that the man who 
occupied the rooms just overhead — those back of the 
day laborer — was the same whose sign, "Saws Filed," 
protruded from the front door. "It's Mr. Gridley and 
his boy. He isn't in yet, I think. He usually comes in, 
though, about this time. If you want to wait, I'm sure 
he'll be glad to let you see his rooms." 

She spoke as if she knew Mr. Gridley, and I had the 
feeling from her very assuring words that he must be a 
pleasant and accommodating character. 

As I went out and around to the front door again to 
have one more look, I saw an old man approaching across 
the quondam pond, carrying a small saw, and I felt sure, 
at sight of him, that it was Mr. Gridley. He was tall, 
emaciated, stoop shouldered, a pleasant and even con- 
ciliatory type, whose leathern cheeks and sunken eyes com- 
bined with a simple, unaffected and somewhat tired man- 
ner seemed to suggest one to whom life had done much, 
but whose courage, gentleness and patience were not by 
any means as yet exhausted. As he came up I observed: 
"This isn't Mr. Gridley, is it?" 

"Yes, sir," he smiled. "What can I do for you?" 

"You live in the rear rooms upstairs, I believe. My 
family used to live here, years ago. I wonder if you 
would mind my looking in for a moment. I merely want 
to see — for old time's sake." 

His face warmed sympathetically. 

"Come right up, neighbor," he volunteered. "I'll be 
only too glad to let you see. You'll have to excuse the 
looks of the place. My son and I live here alone, bach- 
elor style. I've been out in the country today with him 
hunting. He's only fifteen years old." 

We ascended the stairs, and he unlocked the door to 
my old rooms and let me in — the rooms where Ed and 
I and Tillie (or whichever other brother or sister hap- 
pened to be here at the time) were separately provided 
for. It was a suite of three rooms, one large and two 
small, opening out on the north, east, and south, via win- 
dows to the garden below. In summer, and even in win- 



THE KISS OF FAIR GUSTA 311 

ter, these rooms were always ideal, warmed as they were 
by an open fire, but in summer they were especially cool 
and refreshing, there being an attic above which broke 
the heat — delightful chambers in which to read or sleep. 
We never had much furniture (a blessing, I take it, be- 
cause of the sense of space which results) but what we 
had was comfortable enough and ample for all our needs. 
In my day there was a bed and a dressing stand and 
mirror in each of these rooms, and then chairs, and in 
the larger room of the three, quite double the size of the 
other two, a square reading table of cheap oak by which 
I used to sit and work at times, getting my lessons. In 
the main it was a delight to sit here of a hot summer 
day, looking out on the surrounding world and the trees, 
and reading betimes. Here I read Shakespeare and a 
part of Macaulay's "History of England" and Taine's 
"History of English Literature" and a part of Guizot's 
"History of France." I was not an omnivorous reader — 
just a slow, idle, rambling one — but these rooms and these 
books, and the thought of happy days to come, made it 
all a wonder world to me. We had enough to live on. 
The problem of financing our lives was not as yet dis- 
tracting me. I longed for a little money, but not much, 
and life, life, life — all its brilliant pyrotechnic meanings 
— was before me, still to come. 

"It's not very tidy in here," said my host, apologet- 
ically, as he opened the door. "Take a chair, neighbor. 
We live as though we were camping out. Ever since my 
wife died and my oldest boy went into the navy, I stopped 
trying to keep house much. Me and Harry — that's my 
youngest boy — take pot luck here. We do our own house- 
keeping. I've just suffered a great blow in the death of 
my oldest boy over at the Dardanelles. When he left 
the navy he went into the Australian Army, and they 
made him a captain and then when this war broke out 
his company was sent to the Dardanelles and he went 
along and has just been killed over there." 

"It's very sad," I said, looking about at the beggarly 
and disorderly furniture. In one room I could see a 



312 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

shabbily gotten up and unmade bed. In this room was 
an iron cook stove, pots and pans, a litter of guns, saws, 
fishing poles, and the like. 

"Yes," went on my host heavily, and with a keen nar- 
rative sense which was very pleasing to listen to, "he was 
an extra fine boy, really. He graduated here at the high 
school before he went into the marines, and stood high 
in all his classes. Everybody liked him, — a nice, straight- 
talking young fellow, if I do say it." 

He arose, crossed to an old yellow bureau, and took 
out a picture of a young fellow of about twentysix or 
twentyeight, in the uniform of an Australian captain of 
infantry. 

"The way he came to get into the Australian Army," 
he went on, looking fondly at the picture, "was — he was 
over there with one of our ships and they took a liking to 
him and offered him more pay. He was always a great 
fellow for athletics and he used to send me pictures of 
himself as amateur champion of this or that ship, boxing. 
They got his regiment over there on that peninsula, and 
just mowed it down, I hear. You know," he said sud- 
denly, his voice beginning to tremble and break, "I just 
can't believe it. I had a letter from him only three weeks 
ago saying how fine he was feeling, and how interesting 
it all was. — And now he's dead." 

A hot tear fell on a wrinkled hand. 

"Yes, I know," I replied, moved at last. I had been 
so interested in my own connection with this place and the 
memories that were swarming upon me that I had been 
overlooking his. I now felt very sorry for him. 

"You know," he persisted, surveying me with aged 
and wrinkled eyes, "he wasn't just an ordinary boy. I 
have letters here" — and now he fumbled around for 
something else — "from Lord Kitchener and the King and 
Queen of England and the Colonel of his regiment." 
(His voice broke completely, but after a time he went 
on:) "They all said what a fine fellow he was and what 
a loss his death is. It's pretty hard when you're so fond 
of anybody." 



THE KISS OF FAIR GUSTA 313 

He stopped, and I had difficulty in restraining a ten- 
dency to cry a little myself. When one gets so old and 
a boy is so precious ! 

He rubbed his nose with the back of his hand, while I 
read the formal acknowledgments of Colonel Barclay 
Sattersley, D.S.O., of Field Marshal Earl Kitchener, 
K.G., Secretary of State for War, and of Their Majes- 
ties, the King and Queen, formal policy letters all, in- 
tended to assuage all brokenhearted contributors to the 
great war. But it all rang very futile and hollow to me. 
The phrases of the ruling classes of England rattle like 
whitening bones of dead souls, anyhow. 

"You know," he added, after a time, "I can't help 
thinking that there's been an awful mistake made about 
that whole thing down there. His letters told me what 
a hard time they had landing, and how the trenches were 
just full of dead boys after every charge. It seems to 
me they might have found some other way. It looks ter- 
ribly heartless to let whole regiments be wiped out." 

I learned a great deal about Warsaw and its environs 
from this man, for he had lived in this county and near 
here all his life. This house, as he described it, had 
been here since 1848 or thereabouts. The original 
owner and builder had been a judge at one time, but a 
loss of fortune and ill health had compelled him to part 
with it. His oldest and most intelligent sen had been 
a wastrel. He occasionally came to Warsaw to look at 
this very house, as he had once, in our day, and to my 
surprise he told me he was here now, in town, loafing 
about the place — an old man. The houses in front had 
been built only a year before, so if I had come a year 
earlier I would still have seen the ground space about as 
it was, all the old trees still standing. The trees had all 
been cut down thirteen months before! The Grant 
house, in which we had first lived here, had been moved 
over about five years before. The school yard had been 
cut away about seven years before, and so it went. I 
asked him about George and John Sharp, Odin Old- 
father, Pet Wall, Vesta Switzer, Myrtle Taylor, Judson 



314 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

Morris, and so on — boys and girls with whom I had gone 
to school. Of some he knew a little something; of others 
he imagined his youngest boy Harry might know. 
Through his eyes and his words I began to see what a 
long way I had come, and how my life was rounding out 
into something different and disturbingly remote from 
all I had ever known. I felt as though I were in a tomb 
or a garden of wraiths and shadows. 

But if I was depressed here, I was even more so when 
I came to study the Grant house and the school itself. 
The former having been inhabited when my mind was 
in its most formative period, I was struck by the fact 
that nearly all its then pleasing traces had been obliter- 
ated. There was a tree outside the kitchen door from 
which a swing had once been suspended, and where of a 
morning or an evening I used to sit and meditate, ad- 
miring the skies, the schoolhouse tower, the trees, the 
freshness of the year. Swing and tree were gone, the 
house having been moved, and even a longish, parallel 
window through which, so often, I could see my mother 
cooking or working at something in the kitchen, had 
been done over into something else and was now no more. 
There had been a medium sized, handsome spear pine in 
the shade of which I used to lie and read of a summer 
("Water Babies," "Westward Ho," "The Scarlet Let- 
ter" and "The House of the Seven Gables," to say noth- 
ing of much of Irving and Goldsmith) . It was gone. It 
was around this tree that once, of a late November 
evening not long after we had arrived here and I had 
been placed in the public school, that I was chased by 
Augusta Nueweiler (the daughter of the clothier who 
now owned the dry goods store once owned by Yaisley) 
in a determined desire to kiss me; which she succeeded 
in doing. If you will believe it, although I was thirteen 
years of age, I had never been kissed before. Why she 
had been attracted to me I do not know. She was 
plump and pretty, with a cap of short, dark ringlets 
swirling about her eyes and ears, and a red and brown 



THE KISS OF FAIR GUSTA 315 

complexion, and an open, pretty mouth. I thought she 
was very beautiful. 

Back of this house had been a large garden or truck 
patch, which we planted richly that first summer, and 
back of that again, a grove of tall ash trees two acres in 
extent. To this, during that first summer and winter, I 
had been wont to repair in order to climb the trees and 
look out upon a large marsh (it seemed large to me at 
that time) which contained, as its principal feature, the 
winding Tippecanoe River or creek, making silvery S's 
between the tall sedges and their brown cat tails. It was 
a delightful sight to me then. I used to climb so high 
(all alone and often) that the wind would easily rock 
the tall spear to which I was clinging, and then it seemed 
as though I were a part of heaven and the winds and all 
rhythmic and colorful elements above man — elements 
which had no part or share with him. 

It was to this grove that my brother Ed and I once 
repaired of a Saturday morning after a Friday night 
party — our very first — at which a kissing game had been 
played and we had been kissed. Life was just dawning 
upon us as a garden of flowers, in which girls were the 
flowers. We had already been commenting on various 
girls at school during the past two or three months, 
learning to talk about and discriminate between them, 
and now, at this party, given at the house of one girl 
whom I thought to be the most perfect of all, we had 
been able to see twenty or thirty, decked in fineries so 
delicate and entrancing, that I was quite beside myself. 
All the girls, really, that we had come to single out as 
beautiful were there — wonderful girls, to my entranced 
eyes — and each of us, as it happened, had been called in 
to be kissed by girls to whom we had scarce dared to lift 
our eyes before. It was all in the game, and not to be 
repeated afterward. The moralists tell us that such 
games are pernicious and infective in their influence, but 
to memory they are entrancing. Whatever it Is that is 
making life — throwing us on a screen of ether quite as 
moving pictures are thrown on canvas, to strut through 



3i6 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

our little parts — its supremest achievements, so far, are 
occasions such as I have been describing — moments in 
which the blood of youth in a boy speaks to its fellow 
atoms in the body of a girl and produces that astonishing 
reaction which causes the cheeks to mantle, the eyes to 
sparkle or burn, the heart to beat faster, the lungs to 
become suffocatingly slow in their labors. 

On this particular morning, sitting in this grove now 
no longer present and sawing a log of wood which was 
ours, Ed and I tried to recall how wonderful it had been 
and how we felt, but it was scarcely possible. It could 
not be done. Instead, we merely glowed and shivered 
with the memory of intense emotions. And today it 
comes back as astonishing and perfect as ever — a chemi- 
cal state, a rich, phantasmagoric memory, and never to 
be recaptured. I have changed too much. All of us of 
that day have changed too much. 

I saw Ed on the street not long ago and his hair was 
slightly grey and he was heavy and mature. Having 
been here, I was tempted to ask him whether he remem- 
bered, but I refrained because I half fancied that he 
would not, or that he would comment on it from a lately 
acquired religious point of view — and then we might 
have quarreled. 



CHAPTER XL 

OLD HAUNTS AND OLD DREAMS 

But the school next door gave me the cruellest shock 
of all. I went into it because, it being mid August, the 
preliminary autumn repairs were under way and the 
place was open. Workingmen were scattered about — 
carpenters, painters, glaziers. I had no idea how sound 
my memory was for these old scenes until I stepped in- 
side the door and saw the closets where we used to hang 
our hats and coats on our nails and walked up the stairs 
to the seventh grade room, which is the one in which I 
had been placed on our arrival in Warsaw. 

Here it was, just as I had left it, apparently — the same 
walls, the same benches, the same teacher's table. But 
how small the benches had grown, scarcely large enough 
for me to squeeze into now, even though I allowed for 
a tight fit! The ceiling and walls seemed not nearly so 
high or so far as they had once seemed. At that very 
table sat Mae Calvert, our teacher — dead now, so some- 
one told me later — a blooming girl of nineteen or twenty 
who at that time seemed one of the most entrancing crea- 
tures in all the world. She had such fine blue eyes, such 
light brown hair, such a rounded, healthy, vigorous body. 
And she had been so fond of me. Once, sitting at my little 
desk (it was the fifth from the front in the second aisle, 
counting from the west side of the room), she paused 
and put her hand on my head and cheek, pinching my 
neck and ear, and I colored the while I thrilled with 
pleasure. You see, hitherto, I had been trained in a 
Catholic school, what little I had been, and the process 
had proved most depressing — black garbed, straight 
laced nuns. But here in this warm, friendly room, with 
girls who were attractive and boys who were for the 

317 



3i8 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

larger part genial and companionable, and with a teacher 
who took an interest in me, I felt as though I were In a 
kind of school paradise, the Nirvana of the compulsorily 
trained. 

Another time (it was in reading class) she asked me 
to read a paragraph and when I had and paused, she 
said: "I can't tell you how beautifully you read, Theo- 
dore. It is so natural; you make everything so real." 
I blushed again, for I felt for the moment by some odd 
transposition that she was making fun of me. When I 
looked up into her face and saw her eyes — the way in 
which she looked at me — I understood. She was actually 
fond of me. 

At later times and in various ways during this year 
she drew me out of an intense dreamy shyness by watch- 
ing over me, expending an affection which I scarcely 
knew how to take. She would occasionally keep me after 
school to help me with my grammar — a profound mys- 
tery, no least rudiment of which I ever mastered — ^and 
when she gradually discovered that I knew absolutely 
nothing concerning it, she merely looked at me and 
pinched my cheek. 

"Well, don't you worry; you can get along without 
grammar for a while yet. You'll understand it later 
on. 

She passed me in all my examinations, regardless I 
presume, though I have reason to believe that I was 
highly intelligent in respect to some things. At the end 
of the year, when we were clearing up our papers and I 
was getting ready to leave, she put her arms about me 
and kissed me goodbye. I remember the day, the warm, 
spring sunlit afternoon, the beauty and the haunting sense 
of the waning of things that possessed me at the time. 
I went home, to think and wonder about her. 

I saw her a year or so later, a much stouter person, 
married and with a baby, and I remember being very 
shocked. She didn't seem the same, but she remembered 
me and smiled on me. For my part, not having seen her 
for so long a time, I felt very strange and bashful — 



OLD HAUNTS AND OLD DREAMS 319 

almost as though I were in the presence of one I had 
never known. 

But the feeling which I had here today passed over 
this last unheeded. It concerned only the particular days 
in which I was here, the days of a new birth and freedom 
from horrific Spartan restraint, plus the overawing 
weight of the lapse of time. Never before I think, cer- 
tainly not since my mother's death, was I so impressed 
by the lapse of time, the diaphanous nothingness of 
things. I was here thirtytwo years before and all that I 
saw then had body and substance — a glaring material 
state. Here was some of the same material, the same 
sunlight, a few of the same people, perhaps, but time had 
filched away nearly all our characteristics. That boy — 
was his spiritual substance inside of me still unchanged, 
merely overlaid by experience like the heart of a palm? 
I could not even answer that to myself. The soul within 
me could not say. And at least foursevenths of my 
allotted three score years and ten had gone. 

Down the street from this school about five doors was 
another house which was very familiar. I went up the 
narrow brick walk and knocked. A tall, lean, sallow 
creature of no particular figure but with piercing black 
eyes and long, thin hands came to the door. Her hair, 
once jet black, was thinly streaked with grey. She must 
have been all of thirtyfive or forty when I knew her as 
a boy. That made her sixtyfive or seventy now; yet I 
could see no particular change, so vigorous and energetic 
was she. 

"Well, Ed," she exclaimed, "or is it Theodore? Well, 
of all things! Come right in here. I'm glad to see you. 
Land o' goodness 1 And Nate will be pleased to death. 
Nate! Nate!" she called into an adjoining room. "Come 
in here. If here isn't Theodore — or is it Ed?" ("It's 
Theodore," I interjected quickly.) "You know it's been 
so long since I've seen you two I can scarcely tell you 
apart. But I remember both as well as if it were yester- 
day. And it's been — let me see — how long has it been? 
Nearly thirty years now, hasn't it? Well, of all things! 



320 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

I do declare ! And you're getting stout, too. And you've 
grown to be over six feet, at least. Well, I do declare! 
To think of your walking in on me like this. Just you sit 
right down here and make yourself comfortable. Well, 
of all things!" 

By now I must have been smiling like a Cheshire cat. 

Nate, or Nathaniel, one-time carpenter and builder 
(and still such, for all I know), strolled in. It was late 
in the afternoon, and he was lounging about in a white 
cotton shirt and grey trousers, his suspenders down about 
his hips, a pipe in his mouth and an evening paper in his 
hand. 

"Well, Dorse," he called, "where do you come from?" 

I told him. 

"Think of that, now," exclaimed Mrs. McConnell, 
"and a car! And you came all the way through from 
New York? Well, lots of them do that now. Charlie 
Diggers went through from here to Pennsylvania in a 
Ford not long ago." 

She cackled stridently. I was fascinated by her vigor 
in age. 

"Nate here," she went on, "says he thinks we ought to 
get a machine one of these days, but lawsie ! I don't know 
whether I could learn to run it, and I'm certain he 
couldn't." Her keen birdlike eyes devoured me, and she 
smiled. "And so you're a writer? Well, what do you 
write? Novels?" 

"Well, some people condescend to call them that," I 
answered. "I'd hesitate to tell you what some others call 
them." 

"It's funny I never heard of any of 'em. What's the 
names of some of 'em?" 

I enlightened her. 

"Well, now, that's strange. I never heard of a one of 
them — I must get two or three and see~how you write." 

"That's good of you," I chuckled, in the best of spirits. 

"Bertie Wilkerson — you remember Bertie, don't you? 
— he was the son of the justice of the peace here — well, 
he's on one of the Cleveland papers now, writing in some 



OLD HAUNTS AND OLD DREAMS 321 

way. There's a woman over here in Wabash (I knew 
the name of the novelist coming now) has made a big 
reputation for herself with her books. They have whole 
stacks of em here m the stores, I see. I read one of 'em. 
1 hey tell me she's worth four or five hundred thousand 
dollars by now. You've heard of her, haven't you?" 
one gave me her name. 

I'Yes," I replied very humbly, "I have." 
"Well I don't suppose you make that much, anyhow, 
do you?" she queried. ^ 

''No," I replied. "I'm very sorry, I don't " 
I could see by the stress she laid on the four or five 
hundred thousand dollars and the stacks of books in the 
local store that my type of authorship would never ap- 
peal to her. ^ 

The conversation changed to the war, and I was 
amused to find her a most vigorous and determined pro- 
Ijerman. I had been under the impression from reading 
the Eastern papers that the West was almost solidly 
pro-Ally, but I received from her a rude awakening. 

Ihe papers! The papers!" she exclaimed. "Yes 
that s how they all talk. You'd think from reading them 
around here— the Chicago papers, anyhow— that every- 
body was for the English. There's more pro-German 
sentiment right here this minute than there is anything 
else. Ihe English— they love us a lot, don't thev? I 
keep reading about their being our brothers or cousins, 
but 1 guess if it came to a showdown they'd jump on us 
as quick as they did on the Germans. All this talk about 
blood being thicker than water! Shucks! There's more 
German and other bloods in America than there is Eng- 
lish. ^ 

"Yes, I know " I said banteringly. "But this country 

""'] T ^f I ' ?"^^''''- °°"'' ^^'■S^t ^he Puritans 
and the Mayflower. 

"The Mayflower! Yes! Well, there were just as 
many other foreign settlers in other places-in New 
York and New Orleans. 

"And anyhow," I added, "if we don't help the English 



322 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

now maybe they'll get mad at us after this war and come 
over and whip us." 

"Just let 'em come!" she exclaimed defiantly — almost 
as if she could see them en route. "They haven't won 
this war yet, and if they hadn't had other people to help 
'em, they'd have been whipped long ago. Shucks, we 
could lick 'em with broomsticks if we didn't have anything 
else. And I'd use one myself!" 

I burst out laughing. The conjured spectacle of mili- 
tant American Amazons such as my hostess, broomsticks 
in hand in battle array, was too much. She laughed with 
me heartily — stridently. 

"You laugh," she said. "But we could do it. Wars 
are won by spirit and brains, and this country has 'em. 
We'll never be whipped — not by the English, anyhow." 

"Bravo!" I exclaimed. "Splendid! I like to feel 
that! You remind me of the best things I have ever 
thought of America." 

I cannot tell you all that we talked over here. It was 
a veritable bombardment of questions and answers. 

When I came out of there after a time and returned 
to the car Franklin was still patiently sketching, making 
good use of his time, whereas Speed was sitting with his 
feet on a part of his engine equipment cleaning a chain. 
They were partly surrounded now: ( i ) by old Mr. Grid- 
ley, he of my former room, who was retailing the story 
of his son's death; (2) by a short, dusty, rotund, rather 
oily-haired man who announced that he was the owner of 
the property which had formerly sheltered me, and who 
by virtue of having cut down all the trees and built the 
two abominable houses in front seemed to think that 
he was entitled to my friendship and admiration — a non 
sequitiir which irritated me greatly; (3) by a small boy 
from somewhere in the vicinity who stood with his legs 
very far apart, his hands in his pockets, and merely 
stared and listened while Mr. Gridley related the mov- 
ing details of his son's death and the futility of the cam- 
paign at the Dardanelles. The owner of the houses in 
front kept trying to interject bits of his personal history 



OLD HAUNTS AND OLD DREAMS 323 

as carpenter, builder, land speculator, and the like. It 

was most entertaining. 

"I was just saying to your friend here," said the latter, 

who had never met me until this moment, "that if you're 

in town long enough you must come and take dinner with 

me. We're just plain people, but we can give you plenty 

to eat. Anyone who lived here as long ago as you 

did " 

I felt no least desire to dine with him, largely because 

he had cut down all the fine trees and built such trashy 

houses. 

He chattered on in an impossible fashion. I could see 

he was greatly impressed by our possession of this car. 

And to have come all the way from New York! I 

wanted to annihilate him for having destroyed the trees 

— the wretch ! 

But I felt that we ought to be getting on. Here it was 
after five and I still had various things to see — the old 
Central High School, where so long ago I finished my 
eighth grade common and my first year German and al- 
gebra; the lakes. Centre and Pike, where with many 
others I had been accustomed to row, swim, skate, fish, 
and camp; the old swimming hole out in the Tippecanoe 
(three miles out, I thought, at least) ; our old Catholic 
Church, where I regularly went to confession and com- 
munion; the woods where I had once found a dead ped- 
dler, lying face down, self-finished, at the foot of a great 
oak; and so on and so forth — endless places, indeed. Be- 
sides, there were various people I wanted to see, people 
who, like the wiry Mrs. McConnell, could tell me much 
— perhaps. 

Alas for intentions and opportunities ! I suppose I 
might have spent days browsing and communing, but now 
that I was here and actually seeing things, I did not feel 
inclined to do it. What was there really to see, I asked 
myself, aside from the mere exterior or surface of things? 
In one more hour I could examine exteriorly or in per- 
spective all of thesfe things — the lakes, the school, the 
swimming hole, the church — they were all near at hand — 



324 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

unless I wanted to linger here for weeks. Did I really 
want to stay longer than this dusk? 

Franklin was eager to get on. When first he invited 
me he had planned no such extended tour as this, and 
these were not his sacred scenes. It was all very well — 
but 

Nevertheless, we did cruise (as Speed was wont to. 
express it), first to Centre Lake, where many a moon- 
light when the ice was as thick as a beam and as smooth 
as glass Ed, Tillie and I, along with a half hundred town 
boys and girls, had skated to our hearts' content or fished 
through the ice. My, how wonderful it was! To see 
them cutting ice on the lake with horses and fishing 
through holes only large enough to permit the extraction 
of a small sized fish when one bit. To my astonishment 
the waters of the lake had receded or diminished fully a 
fifth of its original circumference, and all the houses and 
boathouses which formerly stood close to its edge were 
now fully two hundred feet inland. In addition, all the 
smartness and superiority- which once invested this sec- 
tion were now gone — the region of the summer confer- 
ences at Winona having superseded this. Houses I was 
sure I would be able to recall, should they chance to be 
here — those of Maud Rutter, Augusta Nueweiler (she of 
the fir tree kiss), Ada Sanguiat, were not discernible at 
all. I knew they were here unchanged, but I could not 
find them. 

We went out past an old bridge to the northeast of 
the town (scarcely a half mile out) and found to my as- 
tonishment that the stream it once spanned — the Tippe- 
canoe, if you please — and that once drained Centre and 
Pike Lakes, was now no more. There was only a new 
stone culvert here, not the old iron and plank wagon 
bridge of my day — and no water underneath it at all, 
only a seepy muck, overgrown with marsh grass!! The 
whole river, a clear sandy-bottomed stream, was now 
gone — due to the recession of the lake, I suppose. The 
swimming hole that I fancied must be all of two or three 
miles out was not more than one, and it had disappeared, 



OLD HAUNTS AND OLD DREAMS 325 

of course, with the rest. There was not even a sign of 
the footpath that led across the fields to it. All was 
changed. The wild rice fields that once stood about here 
for what seemed miles to me, and overrun in the sum- 
mertime (July, August, and September, in particular) 
with thousands upon thousands of blackbirds and crows, 
were now well plowed cornland! I could not see more 
than the vaguest outlines of the region I had known, and 
I could not recapture, save in the vaguest way, any of 
the boyish moods that held me at the time. In my heart 
was a clear stream and a sandy bottom and a troop of 
half-forgotten boys, and birds, and blue skies, and men 
fishing by this bridge where was now this culvert — Ed and 
I among them occasionally — and here was nothing at all 
— a changed world. 

"Oh, it's all gone!" I cried to Franklin. "Let's go 
back." 

We went up to the old Central High School, looking 
exactly as it did in my day, only now a ward instead of 
a high school — a new high having been built since I left 
— and here I tried to recapture some of the emotions I 
have always had in my dreams of it and have still. I saw 
troops of boys and girls coming out of it at noon and at 
four in the afternoon — I and my sister Tillie among 
them. I saw Dora Yaisley and Myrtle Taylor (of the 
pale flower face and violet eyes), and Jess Beasley and 
Sadie and Dolly Varnum — what a company! And there 
were George and John Sharp — always more or less com- 
panionable with me, and "Jud" Morris and Frank Yais- 
ley and Al Besseler and a score of others — interesting 
souls all and now scattered to the four corners of the 
earth. 

But sitting in the car — suddenly I saw myself in my 
seat upstairs looking out the north window which was 
nearest me, and dreaming of the future. From where I 
sat in those days I could see up a long, clean alley, with 
people crossing at Its different street intersections for 
blocks away. I could see far off to where the station was 
and the flour mill and where the trains came in. I could 



326 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

hear their whistles — distant and beckoning — feeling the 
tug and pull of my future life to come out and away. 
I could see clouds and trees and little houses and birds 
over the court house tower, and then I wanted to get 
out and fly too — to walk up and down the great earth and 
be happy. 

I tell you, in those days, wonderful, amazing moods 
were generated in the blood of me. I felt and saw things 
which have never come true — glories, moods, gayeties, 
prefections. There was a lilt in my heart and my soul. 
I wanted, oh! I wanted all that Nature can breed in her 
wealth of stars and universes — and I found — what have 
I found ? 

The frame of any man is an infinitesimal shell. The 
soul of him so small, a pale lamp which he carries in his 
hands! The passions of which we boast or from whose 
imagined horrors we flee are such little things — rush 
lights — scarcely able to glimmer in so great a dark. I 
have eaten and drunken, and thirsted after all, but should 
the curtain descend now, how little have I had! How 
little could any man ever have ! 

Oh, great, scheming, dreaming Prince of Life — what 
Is that you are after? What blood moods in your soul 
is it that we, your atoms, hurry to fulfill? Do you love? 
Do you hate? By billions sweating, blazing, do we ful- 
fill some quaint desire of yours? Drop you the curtain 
then on me. I do not care — I am very tired. Drop it 
and let me dream no more the endless wonders and de- 
lights that never, never, can be. 



CHAPTER XLI 

BILL ARNOLD AND HIS BROOD 

West of Warsaw about twelve miles lies the town of 
Silver Lake, on a small picturesque lake of the same name 
— a place to which, during our residence at Warsaw, Ed 
and I more than once repaired to visit a ne'er-do-well 
uncle and his wife, the latter my mother's half sister. 
This family was so peculiar and so indifferent to all 
worldly success and precedence, so utterly trifling and 
useless, that I am tempted to tell about them even though 
they do not properly belong in this narrative. William 
or "Bill" Arnold, as he was called locally, was really the 
cause of it all. He was the father, but little more than a 
countiy wastrel. He had a fiddle on which he could play 
a little. He had a slightly cocked eye and a nasal voice, 
high and thin. He had no more education than a squirrel 
and no more care for things of place and position than 
any rabbit or woodchuck. His wife, a kindly, inarticu- 
late and meditative woman, who looked like my mother, 
was all out of sorts and down at heels in soul and body 
because of his indifference to all things material or spir- 
itual. They lived in an old tumble-down, paintless house, 
the roof of which leaked and the eaves sagged, and here, 
and in other houses like it, no doubt, they had had four 
children, one of whom, the eldest, became a thief (but a 
very clever one, I have heard) ; the second a railroad 
brakeman; the third the wife of an idle country loafer as 
worthless as her father; the fourth, a hunchbacked boy, 
was to me, at least, a veritable sprite of iniquity, thinking 
up small deviltries the whole day long. He was fond of 
fighting with his sister and parents, shouting vile names 
when angry, and so conducting himself generally that he 
was an object almost of loathing to such of our family 
as knew him. 

327 



328 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

Their home was a delightful place for me to come to, 
so fresh, so new, so natural — not at all like our ordered 
home. I felt as though I were housed with a kind of 
genial wild animal — a fox or prairie dog or squirrel or 
coyote. Old Arnold had no more morals than a fox or 
squirrel. He never bathed. He would get up in the 
morning and feed his pigs and two horses, the only ani- 
mals he owned — and then, if the weather was suitable 
and he had no absolutely compelling work to do, he 
would hunt rabbits (in winter) or squirrel or "pat- 
ridges," or go fishing, or go down to the saloon to fiddle 
and sing or to a dance. He was always driving off to 
some dance where he earned a few cents as a fiddler (it 
was his great excuse), and then coming home at two or 
three in the morning, slightly tipsy and genial, to relate 
his experiences to anyone who would listen. He was not 
afraid of his wife or children exactly, and yet he was not 
the master of them either, and it used to scandalize me 
to have him called a loafer and an "old fool," not by her 
so much as by them. My own father was so strict, so 
industrious, so moral, that I could scarcely believe my 
ears. 

I used to love to walk west from Warsaw on a fine 
summer's day, when my mother would permit me, and 
visit them — walk the whole twelve miles. Once she em- 
powered me to negotiate for a cow which this family 
owned and for which we paid twentyfive dollars. Ed 
and I drove the cow up from Silver Lake. Another time 
we bought three (or four) pigs, and drove them (Ed 
and I) the whole twelve miles on a hot July day. Great 
heavens ! What a time we had to get them to come along 
straight! They ran into bogs and woods — wherever 
there was a fence down — and we had to chase them until 
they fell exhausted — too far gone to run us farther. 
Once they invaded a tangled, low growing swamp, to 
wallow in the muck, and we had to get down on our 
hands and knees — our bellies actually — to see where they 
had gone. We were not wearing shoes and stockings; 
but we took off our trousers, hung them over our arms. 



BILL ARNOLD AND HIS BROOD 329 

and went in after them. If we didn't beat those pigs 
when we got near enough! Say! We chased them for 
nearly a mile to exhaust and punish them, and then we 
switched them along the rest of the way to "get even." 

I remember one hot July afternoon, when I was visit- 
ing here, how my Aunt Susan read my fortune in the 
grounds of a coffee cup. It was after a one o'clock farm- 
hand dinner. LIncle Bill and one or two of the other 
children had come and gone. I was alone with her, and 
we sat in the shade of an east porch, comfortable in the 
afternoon. I can see the wall of trees over the way, even 
yet, the bees buzzing about an adjacent trumpet vine, the 
grass hot and dry but oh! so summery. 

"Now, let's see what It says about you In your cup," 
and she took it and turned it round and round, upside 
down three times. Then she looked Into It meditatively 
and after a while began: "Oh, I see cities, cities, cities, 
and great crowds, and bridges, and chimneys. You are 
going to travel a long way — all over the world, perhaps. 
And there are girls In your cup! I see their faces." (I 
thrilled at that.) "You won't stay here long. You'll be 
going soon, out into the world. Do you want to travel?" 
she asked. 

"Yes, indeed I do," I replied. 

"Well, you will. It's all here." 

Her face was so grave ! She looked like one of the 
three fates, so old, so wrinkled, so distant. 

I thought nothing of her at the time, but only of my- 
self. How beautiful would be that outside world! And 
I would be going to it soon ! Walking up and down in 
it! Oh, wonderful, wonderful, wonderful! 

When we were traveling toward Warsaw it had been 
my Idea that we would visit Silver Lake and if I could 
find nothing more I could at least look at that body of 
water and the fields that surrounded it and the streets 
with which I had been fairly familiar. The lake had 
seemed such a glorious thing to me in those days. It 
was so sylvan and silent. A high growth of trees sur- 



330 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

rounded it like a wall. Its waters reflected in turn blue, 
grey, green, black. It was so still within its wall of trees 
that our voices echoed hollowly. A fish leaping out of 
the water could be heard, and the echo of the splash. 
Often I sat here gazing at the blue sky and the trees, and 
waiting for a small red and green cork on my line to 
bob. 

But my aunt and my uncle were long since dead, I 
knew. The children had gone — where? There was 
probably no least trace of them anywhere here, and I 
was in no mood to hunt them down. Still, in coming 
West, I had the desire to come here, to look, to stand in 
some one of these old places and recover if I might a 
boyhood mood. 

Now, as we were leaving Warsaw, however, I was 
too physically tired and too spiritually distrait to be very 
much interested. My old home town had done for me 
completely — the shadows of older days. For one thing, 
I had a splitting headache, which I was carefully con- 
cealing, and a fine young heartache into the bargain. I 
was dreadfully depressed and gloomy. 

But it was a fine warm night, with a splendid half 
moon in the sky and delicious wood and field fragrances 
about. Such odors! Is there anything more moving 
than the odors, the suspirings of the good earth, in sum- 
mer? 

As we neared Silver Lake (as I thought) we ran 
down into a valley where a small rivulet made its way 
and under the darkling trees we encountered a homing 
woman, coming from a milking shed which was close to 
the stream. Five children were with her, the oldest boy 
packing the youngest, an infant of two or three years. It 
reminded me of all the country families I had known in 
my time — a typical mid-Western and American proces- 
sion. The mother, a not unprepossessing woman of 
forty, was clothed in a shapeless grey calico print with a 
sunbonnet to match, and without shoes. The children 
were all barefooted and ragged but as brown and healthy 
and fresh looking as young animals should be. It so 



T»art«;l>n R"1p 




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*,-*^Siaf.»^ 



CENTRAL INDIANA 
A Farm and Silo 



BILL ARNOLD AND HIS BROOD 331 

chanced that Speed had to do something here — look 
after the light or supply the motor with a cooling draught 
— and so we paused, and the children gathered around 
us, intensely curious. 

"Gee, ain't it a big one !" exclaimed the eldest. "Look 
at the silver." 

He was descanting on the lamp. 

"I'll bet it ain't no bigger than that jackdigger that 
went through here yesterday," observed the second eld- 
est boastfully. 

"What's a jackdigger?" I inquired helplessly. 

"Oh, it's a car," replied the eldest, one of the hand- 
somest boys one would want to look at — beautiful, really 
— all the more so because of his torn shirt and trousers 
and his bare feet and head. 

"Yes, but what kind of car? What make?" 

"Oh, I can't think. We see 'em around here now and 
then — great big fellers." 

And now the next to the youngest, a boy of five or six, 
had come alongside where I was sitting and was looking 
up at me — a fat little cherub in panties so small you could 
have made them out of a good sized handkerchief. 

"There you are," I said to him helpfully. "Won't 
you come up and sit with me here — such a nice big boy 
as you are?" 

He shook his head and backed away a little. 

"Huhuh," he said, after a pause. 

"Why not?" I queried, a little yearningly, for I wanted 
him to come and sit with me. 

"I can't," he replied, eyeing me solemnly. "I'm 
'fraid." 

"Oh, no," I said, "not afraid of me, surely? Don't 
you know that no one would think of hurting a little boy 
like you — not a person in all the world? Won't you 
come now and sit with me? It's so nice up here." 

I held out my arms. 

"I'm 'fraid," he repeated. 

"Oh, no," I insisted. "You mustn't say that, not of 
me? You couldn't be. Can't you see how much I like 



332 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

you? See here" — and I reached into my pocket — "I 
have pennies and picturecards and I don't know what all. 
Won't you come now? Please do." 

"Go on, Charlie," called a brother. "Whatcha 'fraid 
of? Go on." This brother came around then and tried 
to persuade him. 

All the while he was staring at me doubtfully, his eyes 
getting very round, but finally he ventured a step for- 
ward, and I picked him up and snuggled him in my 
arms. 

"There, now," I said. "Now, you see? You're not 
afraid of me, are you? Up here in the nice, big car? 
And now here's your other brother come to sit beside 
us" — (this because the next oldest had clambered in) — 
"and here's a nickel and here's a picturecard and " 

"Who's 'fraid!" he crowed, sitting up in my lap. "I 
ain't 'fraid, am I?" 

"Indeed not," I returned. "Big boys like you are not 
afraid of anything. And now here's a fine big nickel" — 
I went on because he had ignored the previous offer. 
"And here's a card. Isn't that nice?" 

"Huhuh," he replied. 

"You mean you don't like it — don't want it?" 

"Huhuh," he repeated. 

"And why not?" 

"My mother won't let me." 

"Your mother won't let you take any money?" 

"Huhuh." 

"Is that right?" I asked of the eldest boy, rather 
taken aback by the morals of this group — they were so 
orderly and sweet. 

"That's right," he replied, "she won't let us." 

"Well, now, I wouldn't have you do anything to dis- 
please mother — not for worlds — but I'm sorry just the 
same," observing her in the distance. She was bending 
over several full milk pails. Even as I looked she picked 
them up and came trudging toward us. 

"Well, anyhow, you can take a card, can't you?" I 



BILL ARNOLD AND HIS BROOD 333 

continued, and I gave each several pictures of Warsaw 
scenes. "They won't hurt, will they?" 

"Huhuh," answered the little one, taking them. 

As the mother neared us I suffered a keen recrudes- 
cence of the mood that used to grip me when my mother 
would go out of an evening like this to milk or walk 
about the garden or look after the roses at Sullivan, and 
Ed and Tillie and I would follow her. She was so dear 
and gentle. Under the trees or about our lawn we would 
follow her, and here under these odorous trees, in the 
light of this clear moon, the smell of cattle and wild 
flowers about, my mother came back and took me by the 
hand. I held onto her skirt and rubbed against her legs 
self protectingly. She was all in all to us in those years 
— the whole world — my one refuge and strength. 

How benign is the power that makes mothers — and 
mothers' love ! 

Soon we were off again, speeding under the shade of 
overhanging trees or out in the open between level fields, 
and after racing about fourteen miles or thereabouts, we 
discovered that we were not near Silver Lake any more 
at all — had passed it by seven miles or so. We were 
really within six miles of North Manchester, Indiana, a 
place where a half uncle of mine had once lived, a stingy, 
greedy, well meaning Baptist, and his wife. He had a 
very large farm here, one of the best, and was noted for 
the amount of hay and corn he raised and the fine cattle 
he kept. My brother Albert, shortly after the family's 
fortune had come to its worst smash — far back in 1878 
— had been sent up here by mother to work and board. 
She was very distraught at the time — at her wits' ends — 
and her brood was large. So here he had come, had 
been reasonably well received by this stern pair and had 
finally become so much of a favorite that they wanted to 
adopt him. Incidentally he became very vigorous physi- 
cally, a perfect little giant, with swelling calves and bi- 
ceps and a desire to exhibit his strength by lifting every- 
body and everything — a trait which my sister Tillie soon 
shamed out of him. When we had finally settled in Sul- 



334 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

livan, in 1880, for a year or two he rejoined us and 
would not return to his foster parents. They begged him 
but the family atmosphere at Sullivan, restricted and 
poverty stricken as it was, proved too much for him. He 
preferred after a time to follow us to Evansville and 
eventually to Warsaw. Like all the rest of us, he was 
inoculated with the charm of my mother. No one of us 
could resist her. She was too wonderful. 

And now as we neared this city I was thinking of all 
this and speculating where Al might be now — I had not 
heard from him in years — and how my half-uncle had 
really lived (I had never seen him) and what my mother 
would think if she could follow this ramble with her 
eyes. But also my head was feeling as though it might 
break open and my eyes ached and burned dreadfully. 
I wanted to go back to Warsaw and stay there for a 
while — not the new Warsaw as I had just seen it, but 
the old Warsaw. I wanted to see my mother and Ed 
and Tillie as we were then, not now, and I couldn't. We 
rolled into this other town, which I had never seen be- 
fore, and having found the one hotel, carried in our 
bags and engaged our rooms. Outside, katy-dids and 
other insects were sawing lustily. There was a fine, clean 
bathroom with hot and cold water at hand, but I was 
too flat for that. I wished so much that I was younger 
and not so sick just now. I could think of nothing but to 
undress and sleep. I wanted to forget as quickly as pos- 
sible, and while Franklin and Speed sallied forth to 
find something to eat I slipped between the sheets and 
tried to rest. In about an hour or less I slept — a deep, 
dreamless sleep; — and the next morning on opening 
my eyes I heard a wood dove outside my window and 
some sparrows and two neighbor women gossiping in 
good old Indiana style over a back fence, and then I felt 
more at ease, a little wistful but happy. 



CHAPTER XLII 

IN THE CHAUTAUQUA BELT 

The centre of Indiana is a region of calm and sim- 
plicity, untroubled to a large extent, as I have often felt, 
by the stormy emotions and distresses which so often af- 
fect other parts of America and the world. It is a region 
of smooth and fertile soil, small, but comfortable homes, 
large grey or red barns, the American type of windmill, 
the American silo, the American motor car — a happy 
land of churches, Sunday schools, public schools and a 
general faith in God and humanity as laid down by the 
Presbyterian or the Baptist or the Methodist Church and 
by the ten commandments, which is at once reassuring 
and yet disturbing. 

This day as we traveled through Wabash, Peru (the 
winter home of Hagenbeck's and Wallace's combined 
shows, b'gosh!), Kokomo, where the world very nearly 
came to an end for Speed and where James Whitcomb 
Riley once worked in a printer's shop (I understood he 
had no love for my work) — and so on through West- 
field, an old Quaker settlement, and to Carmel (where 
Franklin lives), and really to Indianapolis, for Carmel is 
little more than a suburb of the former, — I was more and 
more struck with the facts as I have outlined them here. 
Certain parts of the world are always in turmoil. Across 
the rasping grasses of Siberia or the dry sands of Egypt 
blow winds cold or hot, which make of the people rest- 
less, wandering tribes. To peaceful Holland and Bel- 
gium, the lowlands of Germany, the plains of France 
and Italy, and indeed all the region of the ancient world, 
come periodic storms of ambition or hate, which make 
of those old soils burying grounds not only of individual 
souls but of races. Here in America we have already 

335 



336 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

had proof that certain sections of our land are destined 
apparently to tempestuous lives — the Atlantic and Pa- 
cific seaboards, Texas, Colorado, Kentucky, various parts 
of the South and the West and the Northwest, where 
conditions appear to engender the mood dynamic. From 
Chicago, or Colorado, or San Francisco one may expect 
a giant labor war or social upheaval of any kind; from 
Boston or Pennsylvania or New Mexico new religious 
movements may come — and have ; New York, Pennsyl- 
vania, Kansas, Nebraska and Illinois can and have con- 
tributed vast political upheavals. This is even true of 
Ohio, its next door neighbor. 

But Indiana lies in between all this — simple, unpreten- 
tious, not indifferent but quiescent, — a happy land of 
farms and simple industries which can scarcely be said 
to have worked any harm to any man. 

Its largest cities have grown in an unobtrusive and al- 
most unheralded way. Its largest contributions to Amer- 
ican life so far have been a mildly soporific love litera- 
ture of sorts, and an uncertain political vote. Anyone 
could look at these towns — all that we saw — and be sure 
that the natives were of an orderly, saving, genial and 
religious turn. I never saw neater small towns anywhere, 
nor more imposing churches and public buildings, nor 
fewer saloons, nor cleaner streets, nor better roads. A 
happy land, truly, where the local papers give large and 
serious attention to the most innocuous of social doings 
and the farmers take good care that all their land is un- 
der cultivation and well looked after. 

As we were passing through Wabash, for instance — 
or was it Peru? — we came upon a very neat and pleasing 
church and churchyard, the front lawn of which an old 
man of a very energetic and respectable appearance — 
quite your "first citizen" type — was mowing with a lawn- 
mower. 

"Why should a man of that character be doing that 
work this weekday, do you suppose?" I inquired of 
Franklin. 

"To get to heaven, of course. Can't you see? Heaven 



IN THE CHAUTAUQUA BELT 337 

rs a literal, material thing to him. It's like this church 
building and its grass. The closer he can identify him- 
self with that here the nearer he will come to walking into 
his heaven there. I've noticed at home that the more 
prosperous and well to do farmers are usually the lead- 
ers in the church. They apply the same rules of getting 
on in religion that they do to their business. It is all a 
phase of the instinct of a man to provide for himself and 
his family. I tell you, these people expect to find more or 
less a duplication of what they have here — with all the 
ills and pinches taken out and all the refinements of their 
fancy, such as it is, added." 

I felt as I thought of that old man that this was true. 
He reminded me of my father, to whom to do the most 
menial work about a Catholic church was an honor — such 
as carrying in wood, building a fire, and the like. You 
were nearer God and the angels for doing it. Actually 
you were just outside the pearly gates. And if one could 
only die in a church — presto ! — the gates would open and 
there you would be inside. 

Truly, this day of riding south after my depressing 
afternoon in Warsaw was one of the most pleasant of 
any that had come to me. Now that I had recovered 
from my mood of the night before — a chemic and psy- 
chic disturbance which quite did for me — I was in a very 
cheerful frame of mind. Long before either Franklin 
or Speed had risen this morning — they had spent the 
evening looking around the town — I was up, had a cold 
bath, and had written various letters and visited the post 
office and studied the town in general. 

It was a halcyon morning, partly grey with a faint tint 
of pink in the East, when I first looked out, and such an 
array of house martins on five telegraph or telephone 
wires over the way as I had not seen in a long time. Birds 
are odd creatures. Their gregariousness without speech 
always fascinates me. These, ranged as they were on 
the different wires, looked exactly like the notes of a 
complicated and difficult fugue — so much so that I said to 
a passing citizen who seemed to show an interest: "Now, 



338 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

if you had a piano or an organ just how would you play 
that?" 

He looked up at the wires which a wave of my hand 
indicated, then at me. He was a man of over forty, who 
looked as though he might be a traveling salesman or 
hotelkeeper. 

"They do look like notes, don't they?" he agreed. 

We both smiled, and then he added: "Now you make 
me wonder." And so we parted. 

Towns of this size, particularly in the Middle West — 
and I can scarcely say why — have an intense literary and 
artistic interest for me. Whether it is because of a cer- 
tain comic grandioseness which accompanies some of 
their characters or an ultra seriousness entirely out of 
proportion to the seeming import of events here — or 
whether one senses a flow of secret and subconscious de- 
sires hindered or trammeled perhaps by cluttering or suf- 
focating beliefs or weaknesses, or a lightness and sim- 
plicity of character due to the soil and the air — I do not 
know; but it is so. In this region I am always stirred or 
appealed to by something which I cannot quite explain. 
The air seems lighter, the soil more grateful; a sense of 
something delicately and gracefully romantic is abroad. 

Like children they are, these people, so often con- 
cerned with little things which do not matter at all — 
neighborhood opinions, neighborhood desires, neighbor- 
hood failures and contempts which a little more mind 
could solve or dissolve so readily. Whenever I see a town 
of this size in Indiana I think of our family and its rela- 
tion to one or many like it. My mother and sisters and 
brothers suffered so much from conventional local notions. 
They made such a pathetic struggle to rid themselves of 
trammeling, minor local beliefs. 

And did they succeed? 

Not quite. Who does? Small life surrounds one like 
a sea. We swim in it, whether we will or no. In high 
halls somewhere are tremendous councils of gods and 
supermen, but they will not admit us. Zeus and Apollo 
will not suffer the feeble judgments of humble man. And 



IN THE CHAUTAUQUA BELT 339 

80 here we sit and slave and are weary — insects with an 
appointed task. 

North Manchester, like all the small Indiana towns, 
appealed to me on the very grounds I have outlined. As 
I went up the street this early morning with my letters I 
encountered an old man, evidently a citizen of importance 
— present or past — being led down by his daughter (I 
took her to be). The latter was a thin, ansmic person 
who looked endless devotion — a pathetic, yearning so- 
licitude for this man. He was blind, and yet quite an 
impressive figure, large, protuberant as to stomach, a 
broad, well-modeled face somewhat like that of the late 
Henry Ward Beecher, long, snow white hair, a silk hat, 
a swinging cutaway coat of broadcloth, a pleated soft- 
bosomed shirt ornamented with a black string tie, and an 
ivory-headed cane. Under his arm were papers and 
books. His sightless eyes were fixed on nothing — straight 
ahead. To me he looked like a lawyer or judge or con- 
gressman or politician — a local big-wig of some kind yet 
stricken in this most pathetic of all ways. The girl who 
was with him was so intent on his welfare. She was his 
eyes, his ears, his voice, really. It was wonderful — the 
resignation and self-effacement of her expression. It was 
quite moving. 

"Who is that man?" I asked of a grocer clerk putting 
out a barrel of potatoes. 

"That? Oh, that's Judge Shellenberger — or he was 
judge. He's a lawyer now for the Monon (a railroad 
that runs through here). He used to be judge of the 
circuit court." 

I watched them down the street, and as they turned 
into a block of buildings where I suppose was his office, 
my mind was busy conjuring up the background which 
enmeshed them. Life is so full of great tales — every 
life in its way a masterpiece if seen in its entirety and 
against the vast background of life itself. Poor, flutter- 
ing, summer loving man I The bones of him make the 
chalk cliffs of time. 

To the curb in front of another grocery store as I 



340 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

was coming back to the hotel drew up a small, rickety 
buggy — so dilapidated and antique, scarcely worthy or 
safe to be hauled about rough country roads any longer. 
In it were "my Grandfather Squeers" — jackknife legs and 
all — and his wife, a most spare and crotchety female, in a 
very plain black dress, so inexpensive, a grey linseywool- 
sey shawl and a grey poke bonnet. She looked so set 
and fixed and yet humanly interesting in her way. I felt 
sorry for the two of them at once, as I always do for age 
and that limited array of thoughts which has produced 
only a hard, toilsome life. (We laugh at ignorance or 
dullness or condemn them so loudly, but sometimes they 
are combined with such earnestness and effort that one 
would rather cry.) "My Grandfather Squeers" was 
plainly a little rheumatic and crotchety, too. He re- 
minded me of that Mr. Gridley who was occupying my 
old room in Warsaw, only he was much older and not 
quite so intelligent. He was having a hard time getting 
down between the wheels and straightening out some 
parcels under the seat, the while Aunt Sally stared on 
straight ahead and the horse looked back at them — a not 
overfed bay mare which seemed very much concerned in 
their affairs and what they were going to do next. 

"Now, don't you forget about them seed onions," 
came a definite caution from the figure on the seat. 

"No, I won't," he replied. 

"And ast about the potatoes." 

"Yes." 

He cricketed his way into the store and presently came 
out with a small bag followed by a boy carrying a large 
bag — of potatoes, I assumed. 

"I guess we can put them right in front — eh, mother?" 
he called. 

"Yes, I suppose so," she assented, rather sharply, I 
thought, but not angrily. 

The while the boy roughly bestowed the bag between 
them he went back for something, then came out and re- 
adjusted the potatoes properly. 



IN THE CHAUTAUQUA BELT 341 

"He didn't have any red tape," he called loudly, as 
though it was a matter of considerable importance. 
"Well, all right," she said. "Come on and get in." 
With much straining of his thin, stiff legs he got up 
and as he did so I noticed that his coat and trousers were 
home-made — cut, oh! most amazingly — and out of some 
old, faded wine colored cloth to begin with, probably 
worn years before by someone else. It made me think 
of all the old people I had known In my time, scrimping 
along on little or nothing, and of the thousands and thou- 
sands perhaps in every land for whom life is so hard, so 
meagre! If an artist takes a special case in hand and 
depicts it, one weeps, but no scheme has been devised to 
relieve the intense pressure on the many ; and we forget 
so easily. I most of all. If I were a god, I have often 
said to myself, I would try to leaven the whole thing a 
little more evenly — but would I? Perhaps if I were a 
god I would see a reason for things as they are — a 
strangeness, a beauty, a requital not present to these mor- 
tal eyes. 

These streets of North Manchester were hung with 
those same triangular banners — red, white, blue, green, 
pink, orange — which we had seen in the East and which 
announced the imminence of a local Chautauqua. I do 
not know much about that organization, but it certainly 
knows how to advertise in country towns. In the store 
windows were quite striking pictures of Stromboli, the 
celebrated band leader, a chrysanthemum haired, thin 
bodied Italian in a braided white suit, who had been 
photographed crouching, as though he were about to 
spring, and with one thin hand raised high in the air 
holding a baton. His appearance was that of one who 
was saying: "One more crash now and I have won all." 
And adjoining him in every window was the picture of 
Madame Adelina Scherzo, the celebrated soprano prima 
donna "straight from the Metropolitan Opera House, 
New York," who was shown photographed with manager 
and friends on the observation platform of her private 



342 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

car. Madame Scherzo was in black velvet, with bare 
arms, shoulders and throat, an entrancing sight. She 
was rather pretty too, and a line under the picture made 
it clear that she was costing the management "$8oo.oo a 
day," a charge which interested me, considering the size 
of the town and county and the probable audiences which 
could be got out to see anything. 

"How large is the hall where the Chautauqua enter- 
tainments are held?" I asked of the local bookstore man 
where I was buying some picturecards. 

"It isn't a hall; it's a tent," he replied. "They bring 
their own tent." 

"Well, how many will it seat or hold?" 

"Oh, about fifteen hundred people." 

"And how many can they count on at any given per- 
formance?" 

"Oh, about a thousand." 

"Not more than that?" I queried. 

"A thousand is a good crowd for a fair night," he 
persisted. 

"And how much can they average per head?" I con- 
tinued. 

"Oh, not more than twentyfive cents. The seats run 
fifteen, twentyfive, thirtyfive and fifty cents." 

"Then say they average forty cents," I said to myself. 
"That would mean that they took in four hundred dol- 
lars at a single performance — or if there are two a day, 
between seven and eight hundred dollars a day. And 
this one singer costs them eight hundred." 

I saw the horns and hoofs of the ubiquitous press 
agent. 

"Do you think that Madame Scherzo gets the sum 
they say she does?" I asked of this same bookstore man, 
wondering whether he was taken in by their announce- 
ment. He looked fairly intelligent. 

"Yes, indeed! She comes from the Metropolitan 
Opera House. I don't suppose she'd come out here for 
any less than that." 

I wondered whether he intended this as a reflection on 



IN THE CHAUTAUQUA BELT 343 

Indiana or a compliment to North Manchester. It was 
a little dubious. 

"Well, that's a good deal for a tent that only seats 
fifteen hundred," I replied. 

"But you don't want to forget that they play to two 
audiences a day," he returned solemnly, as though he had 
solved it all. 

I thought it unkind to argue with him. Why shouldn't 
North Manchester have a celebrated prima donna cost- 
ing eight hundred dollars a day? Think how the knowl- 
edge of that would add to the natives' enjoyment of her 
music ! 

"You're right," I said. "I hadn't thought of that." 
And out I went. 

While we were trifling about getting ready to start, a 
singular combination of circumstances produced an odd 
case of repetition or duplication of a set of facts which 
had occurred the year before, which impressed me great- 
ly, the more so as it corresponded exactly with a number 
of similar instances in my own life. 

I might preface my remarks by saying that throughout 
my life experiences and scenes have to a certain extent 
tended to duplicate or repeat themselves. Nietzsche re- 
marks somewhere that we all have our typical experiences. 
It is not a particularly brilliant deduction, considering the 
marked predilections of certain temperaments. But when 
we connect up the fact with chemical or physical law, as 
we are likely some day to do, it becomes highly significant. 
Personally, I am one who believes that as yet we have not 
scratched the surface of underlying fact and law. I once 
believed, for instance, that nature was a blind, stumbling 
force or combination of forces which knew not what or 
whither. I drew that conclusion largely from the fum- 
bling nonintelligence (relatively speaking) of men and 
all sentient creatures. Of late years I have inclined to 
think just the reverse, i. e., that nature is merely dark to 
us because of her tremendous subtlety and our own very 
limited powers of comprehension; also that in common 



344 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

with many other minor forces and forms of intelligence — 
insects and trees, for example — we are merely tools or 
implements — slaves, to be exact — and that collectively 
we are used as any other tool or implement would be used 
by us. 

Thus there is a certain species of ant, the Dorylii, 
which is plainly a scavenger so far as the surface of the 
earth is concerned, appearing at the precise moment when 
a dead body Is becoming offensive and burying and 
devouring it. This may be said to be equally true of 
buzzards, jackals, carrion crows, creatures which a Dar- 
winian naturalist would explain as the result of an unin- 
tentional pressure — and natural selection. On the other 
hand, current biology tends to Indicate that all Is fore- 
shadowed, prearranged; that indications of what will be 
are given ages before It is permitted to appear. Onto- 
genetic Orthogenesis it is called, I believe. The creative 
forces have an amazing way of working. They may use 
strange means — races of men and insects, of no particu- 
lar value to them — to accomplish certain results. Thus 
man might well be a tool intended to release certain 
forces In the soil — coal, iron, stone, copper, gold — and all 
his social organization and social striving merely the 
physlco-legal aspects or expression of the processes by 
which all things are done. Multiple unit forces must 
work In some harmonious way, and all these harmonious 
processes would therefore need to be provided for. They 
may be the chemical and physical laws by which we are 
governed. How otherwise can one explain the fact that 
although there is apparently sufficient wisdom in the uni- 
verse to sustain Immense sidereal systems in order and 
to generate all the complex organisms which we see and 
can examine at our leisure, yet man remains blind and 
dumb as to the processes by which he comes and goes? 
He has examined a little. He has prepared a lexicon of 
laws whose workings he has detected. Beyond these 
must be additional laws, or so he suspects, but what are 
they? In the meantime, instead of nature permitting 
him to go on (once he has his mind prepared for thought 



IN THE CHAUTAUQUA BELT 345 

along these lines), it strikes him down and puts new, 
ignorant youth in his place — new, ignorant generations 
of youths. 

Actually (I sincerely believe this) it is not intended 
that man should ever be permitted to know anything. 
The temperaments of the powers to whom we pray are 
not magnanimous. Man is a slave, a tool. The fable of 
Prometheus and the divine fire has more of fact than of 
poetry in it. At every turn of man's affairs he is arbi- 
trarily and ruthlessly and mockingly confused. New 
generations of the dull and thick are put forth. False 
prophets arise. Religionists, warriors, dreamers without 
the slightest conception of the import of that which they 
seek or do, arise, slay, burn, confuse. Man stands con- 
founded for a time, a slave to illusion, toiling with forces 
and by aid of forces which he does not understand, and 
effecting results the ultimate use of which he cannot pos- 
sibly grasp. We burn gas! For ourselves alone? We 
generate electricity! For ourselves alone? We mine 
coal. Iron, lead, etc. — release It Into space eventually. 
For ourselves alone? Who knows, really? By reason 
of the flaming, generative chemistry of our bodies we are 
compelled to go on. Why? 

At the critical moment when man becomes too Inquisi- 
tive he may be once more chained to the rock, Prome- 
theus-like, and the eagles of Ignorance and duty set at his 
vitals. Why the astounding bludgeoning of each other 
by the nations of Europe? Cosmlcally — permanently — 
what can they gain? 



CHAPTER XLIII 

THE MYSTERY OF COINCIDENCE 

As we were starting for Wabash from here, a distance 
of twenty miles or so, and at ten o'clock in the morning, it 
began to sprinkle. Now the night before, as we were 
entering this place, Franklin had been telling me that as 
he had gone through here the year before about this time 
in the morning, homebound from a small lake in this vi- 
cinity, some defect in the insulation of the wiring had 
caused a small fire which threatened to burn the car. 
They detected it in time by smelling burning rubber. 
Incidentally, it had started to rain, and they had to go 
back to the local garage for repairs. 

"I bet it rains tomorrow," Speed had observed as he 
heard Franklin's story. 

"Why?" I asked. 

"There's a ring around the moon." 

"That always means rain, does it?" I chaffed. 

He did not answer direct, but concluded: "I bet it 
will be raining by tomorrow noon." 

Just as we were leaving town, and before we reached 
a bridge which spans the Eel River at this place, I de- 
tected the odor of burning rubber and called Frank- 
lin's attention to it. At the same time Speed smelt it 
too, and stopped the car. We got out and made a search. 
Sure enough, a rubber covering protecting and sepa- 
rating some wires which joined in a box was on fire, and 
the smoke was making a fine odor. We put it out, but 
as we did so Franklin observed, "That's funny." 

"What?" I inquired. 

"Why, this," he replied. "At this place last year, in 
a rain, this very spot, nearly, we got out because we 
smelled burning rubber and put out a fire in this same 
box." 

346 



THE MYSTERY OF COINCIDENCE 347 

"That is odd," I said, and then I began to think of 
my own experiences in this line and the fact that so often 
things have repeated themselves in my life, in little and 
in big, in such a curious way. 

Once, as I told Franklin now — the only other time, 
in fact, that I took an important trip in this way — a cer- 
tain Englishman whom I had not seen in years burst in 
upon me with a proposition that I go to England and 
Europe with him, offering to see that the money for the 
trip was raised and without my turning a hand in the 
matter — and quite in the same way, only a week before, 
Franklin himself had burst in upon me with a similar 
proposition, which I had accepted. Another time, at 
the opening of a critical period of my life, I was com- 
pelled to undergo an operation in the process of which, 
under ether, certain characters appeared to me, acting in 
a particular way and saying various things to me which 
impressed me greatly at the time; and later, at another 
critical period when, strangely enough, I was, much 
against my wishes, undergoing another operation, these 
same characters appeared to me and said much the same 
things in the same way. 

One of the commonest of my experiences, as I now 
told Franklin, had been a thing like this. I would be 
walking along thinking of nothing in particular when 
some person, male or female, about whom I cared noth- 
ing, would appear, stop me, and chat about nothing in 
particular. Let us say he or she carried a book, or a 
green parasol, or a yellow stick, and congratulated me 
upon or complained to me concerning something I had or 
had not done. As for my part, at that particular mo- 
ment I might be trying to solve some problem in rela- 
tion to fiction or finance — a crucial. problem. It would 
be raining or beautifully clear or snowing. A year or 
two later, under almost exactly the same circumstances, 
when I would be trying to solve a similar problem, in 
rain or snow or clear weather, as the case might be, I 
would meet the same person, dressed almost as before, 
carrying a book or a cane or green parasol, and we would 



348 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

talk about nothing in particular, and I would say to my- 
self, after he or she were gone, perhaps : "Why, last year, 
at just about this place, when I was thinking of just some 
such problem as this, I met this same person looking about 
like this." 

I am not attempting to theorize concerning this. I 
am merely stating a fact. 

This system of recurrence applies not only to situa- 
tions of this kind, but to many others. The appearance 
of a certain person in my life has always been heralded 
by a number of hunchbacks who came forward, passed — 
sometimes touching my elbow — and frequently looking 
at me in a solemn manner, as though some subconscious 
force, of which they were the tool, were saying to me, 
"See, here is the sign." 

For a period of over fifteen years in my life, at the 
approach of every marked change — usually before I 
have passed from an old set of surroundings to a new 
— I have met a certain smug, kindly little Jew, always 
the same Jew, who has greeted me most warmly, held 
my hand affectionately for a few moments, and wished 
me well. I have never known him any more intimately 
than that. Our friendship began at a sanatorium, at a 
time when I was quite ill. Thereafter my life changed 
and I was much better. Since then, as I say, always 
at the critical moment, he has never failed. I have met 
him in New York, Chicago, the South, in trains, on 
shipboard. It is always the same. Only the other day, 
after an absence of three years, I saw him again. I 
am not theorizing; I am stating facts. I have a feel- 
ing, at times, as I say, that life is nothing but a repe- 
tition of very old circumstances, and that we are prac- 
tically immortal, only not very conscious of it. 

Going south from North Manchester, we had an- 
other blowout in the right rear tire and in connection 
with this there was a discussion which may relate itself 
to what I have just been saying or it may not. The 
reader may recall that between Stroudsburg and Wilkes- 
Barre, in Pennsylvania, we had had two blowouts in 



THE MYSTERY OF COINCIDENCE 349 

this same right rear wheel, or tire, and in connection 
with the last of these two blowouts just east of Wilkes- 
Barre, Franklin had told me that hitherto — ever since 
he had had the car, in fact — all the trouble had been 
in the same right rear wheel and that, being a good mys- 
tic, he had finally to realize for himself that there was 
nothing the matter with the perfect idea of this car as 
it existed before it was built or, in other words, its 
psychic unity, and hence that there couldn't be anything 
wrong with this right rear wheel. You see? After that, 
once this had been clearly realized by him, there had been 
no more trouble of any kind in connection with this par- 
ticular quarter or wheel until this particular trip began. 

"Now see here. Speed," I heard him say on this par- 
ticular occasion. "Here's a psychic fact I want you to 
get. We'll have to get that right hand tire off our minds. 
This car is an embodiment of a perfect idea, an idea 
that existed clear and sound before this car was ever 
built. There is nothing wrong with that idea, or that tire. 
It can't be injured. It is in existence outside this car 
and they are building other cars according to it right 
now. This car is as perfect as that idea. It's a whole — 
a unit. It's intact. Nothing can happen to it. It can't 
be injured. Do you get me? Now you're going to think 
that and we're not going to have any trouble. We're 
going to enjoy this trip." 

Speed looked at Franklin, and I felt as though some- 
thing had definitely been "put over," as we say — just 
what I am not quite able to explain myself. Anyhow we 
had no more tire trouble of any kind until just as we 
were nearing Wabash or about half way between the two 
towns. Then came the significant whistle and we climbed 
down. 

"There you have it!" exclaimed Franklin enigmati- 
cally. "You shouldn't have knocked on wood. Speed." 

"What was that?" I inquired, interested. 

"Well, you remember where we had the last blowout, 
don't you?" 

"Yes," I said, "east of Wilkes-Barre." 



350 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

"We haven't had any trouble since, have we?" 

"Not a bit." 

"Last night, after you had gone to bed. Speed and I 
went to a restaurant. As we were eating, I said: 'We've 
had some great tire luck, haven't we?' Perhaps I 
shouldn't have thought of it as luck. Anyhow he said, 
'Yes, but we're not home yet,' and he knocked on wood. 
I said: 'You shouldn't knock on wood. That's a con- 
fession of lack of understanding. It's a puncture in the 
perfect idea of the car. We're likely to have a blowout 
in the morning.' And here it is." 

He looked at me and smiled. 

"What is this," I said, "a real trip or an illusion?" 

He smiled again. 

"It's a real trip, but it wants to be as perfect as the 
idea of it." 

I felt my conception of a solid earth begin to spin a 
little, but I said nothing more. Anyhow, the wheel was 
fixed, as well as the psychic idea of it. And we didn't 
have any more tire trouble this side of Carmel, where 
Speed left us. 

Going south from North Manchester, we came to 
Wabash, a place about as handsome as Warsaw, if not 
more so, with various charming new buildings. It was on 
the Wabash River — the river about which my brother 
Paul once composed the song entitled, "On the Banks of 
the Wabash Far Away" (I wrote the first verse and 
chorus!), and here we found a picture postcard on sale 
which celebrated this fact. "On the Banks of the Wa- 
bash Far Away," it said under a highly colored scene 
of some sycamore trees hanging over the stream. As 
my brother Paul was very proud of his authorship of this 
song, I was glad. 

From here, since it was raining and we were in a 
hurry to reach Carmel before dark, we hustled west to 
Peru, about twenty miles, the cover up and the storm 
curtains on, for we were in a driving rain. I could not 
help noting how flat Indiana was in this region, how 



THE MYSTERY OF COINCIDENCE 351 

numerous were the beech and ash groves, how good the 
roads, and how Hollandesque the whole distant scene. > 
UnHke Ohio, there was no sense here of a struggle 
between manufacture and trade and a more or less 
simple country life. The farmers had it all, or nearly 
so. The rural homes were most of them substantial, 
if not markedly interesting to look upon, and the small 
towns charming. There were no great factory chimneys 
cutting the sky in every direction, as farther east, but 
instead, windmills, and silos and red or grey barns, and 
cows, or horses, or sheep in the fields. At Peru I asked 
a little girl who worked in the five-and-ten-cent store if 
she liked living in Peru. 

"Like it? This old town? I should say not." 

"Why not?" I replied. 

"Well, you ought to live here for a while, and you'd 
soon find out. It's all right to go through in a ma- 
chine, I suppose." 

"Well, where would you rather be, if not here?" I 
questioned. 

"Oh, what's the use wishing — lots of places," she re- 
plied irritably, and as if desiring to end the vain dis- 
cussion. "It never does me any good to wish." 

She walked off to wait upon another customer, and I 
departed. 

South of Peru were several county seats and towns of 
small size, which we might have visited had we chosen 
to take the time; but aside from passing through Ko- 
komo, in order to see an enormous automobile works 
with which Speed had formerly been connected, and from 
whence, earlier in his life, he had attempted to flee at 
the approach of the end of all things, we avoided all 
these towns. It was raining too hard, and there would 
have been no pleasure in stopping. 

At Kokomo, which appeared presently out of a grey 
mist and across a middle distance of wet green grass 
and small, far scattered trees, we had a most interest- 
ing experience. We met the man who made the 
first automobile in America, and saw his factory — the 



352 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

Haynes Automobile Company, of which he was presi- 
dent and principal stockholder, and which was employ- 
ing, at the time we were there, nearly three thousand 
men and turning out over two thousand cars a year, 
nearly a car apiece for every man and woman in the 
place. I saw no children employed. 

The history of this man, as sketched to me before- 
hand by Franklin and Speed, was most interesting. 
Years before he had been a traveling salesman, using a 
light runabout in this very vicinity. Later he had in- 
terested himself in motors of the gas and steam variety 
and had entered upon the manufacture of them. Still 
later, when the problem of direct transmission was 
solved in France and the automobile began to appear 
abroad, he, in conjunction with a man named Apperson, 
decided to attempt to construct a car here which would 
avoid infringing all the French patents. 'Alone, really, 
without any inventive aid from Apperson, so to speak, 
Haynes solved the problem, at least in part. It was 
claimed later, and no doubt it was true, that he, along 
with many other mechanicians attempting to perfect an 
American car which would avoid French lawsuits, had 
merely rearranged, not improved upon, the French idea 
of direct transmission. At any rate, he was sued, along 
with others; but the American automobile manufacturers 
eventually beat the French patentees and remained in 
possession of their designs. Of all of these, Haynes was 
the first American to put an American automobile in 
the field. 

We were shown over his factory before meeting him, 
however, and a fascinating spectacle it proved. We 
arrived in a driving rain, with the clouds so thick and 
low that you would have thought It dusk. All the lights 
in the great concern were glowing as though it were 
night. A friendly odor of smoke and hot mould sand 
and grease and shellac and ground metal permeated the 
air for blocks around. Inside were great rooms, three 
to four hundred feet long, all of a hundred feet wide, 
and glassed over top and sides for light, in which were 



THE MYSTERY OF COINCIDENCE 353 

droves of men, great companies of them, in jeans and 
jumpers, their faces and hands and hair stained brown 
or black with oil and smoke, their eyes alight with that 
keen interest which the intelligent workman always has 
in his work. 

I never saw so many automobiles and parts of auto- 
mobiles in all my life. It was interesting to look at 
whole rooms piled high with auto carriage frames or 
auto motors, or auto tops or auto bodies. I never imag- 
ined that there were so many processes through which 
all parts of a machine have to be put to perfect them, 
or that literally thousands of men do some one little 
thing to every machine turned out. We stood and gazed 
at men who were polishing the lacquered sides of auto- 
mobile bodies with their thumbs, dipping them in oil and 
so rubbing down certain rough places; or at others hov- 
ering over automobile motors attached in rows to gaso- 
line tanks and being driven at an enormous rate of speed 
for days at a time without ever stopping, to test their 
durability and speed capacity. It was interesting to see 
these test men listening carefully for any untoward sound 
or flash, however slight, which might indicate an error. 
We pay very little, comparatively, for what we buy, con- 
sidering the amount of time spent by thousands in sup- 
plying our idlest wants. 

And there were other chambers where small steel, or 
brass, or copper parts were being turned out by the thou- 
sand, men hovering over giant machines so intricate in 
their motions that I was quite lost and could only develop 
a headache thinking about them afterward. Actually, 
life loses itself at every turn for the individual in just 
such a maze. You gaze, but you never see more than a 
very little of what is going on about you. If we could 
see not only all the processes that are at work simultane- 
ously everywhere, supplying us with what we use here, 
but in addition, only a fraction — that nearest us — of the 
mechanics and physics of the universe, what a stricken 
state would we be in! Actually, unless we were pro- 
tected by lack of capacity for comprehension, I should 



354 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

think one might go mad. The thunder, the speed, the 
light, the shuttle flashes of all the process — how they 
would confuse and perhaps terrify! For try as we will, 
without a tremendous enlargement of the reasoning fac- 
ulty, we can never comprehend. Vast, amazing proc- 
esses cover or encircle us at every turn, and we never 
know. Like the blind we walk, our hands out before 
us, feeling our way. Like moths we turn about the auto- 
genetic flame of human mystery and never learn — until 
we are burned, and not then — not even a little. 

After inspecting the factory we came into the pres- 
ence of the man who had built up all this enterprise. 
He was relatively undersized, quite stocky, with a round, 
dumpling-like body, and a big, round head which looked 
as though it might contain a very solid mass of useful 
brains. He had the air of one who has met thousands, 
a diplomatic, cordial, experienced man of wealth. I 
sensed his body and his mind to be in no very healthy 
condition, however, and he looked quite sickly and pre- 
occupied. He had a habit, I observed, contracted no 
doubt through years of meditation and introspection, of 
folding both arms over his stout chest, and then lifting 
one or the other forearm and supporting his head with 
it, as though it might fall over too far if he did not. 
He had grey-blue eyes, the eyes of the thinker and or- 
ganizer, and like all strong men, a certain poise and 
ease very reassuring, I should think, to anyone compelled 
or desiring to converse with him. 

The story he told us of how he came to build the 
first automobile (in America) was most interesting. 

Franklin had seemed to be greatly interested to dis- 
cover whether as an Indiana pioneer this man had bor- 
rowed the all-important idea of transmission from either 
Daimler or Panhard, two Europeans, who in the 
early stages of the automobile had solved this problem 
for themselves in slightly different ways, or whether he 
had worked out for himself an entirely independent 
scheme of transmission and control. Franklin went 
after him on this, but he could get nothing very 



THE MYSTERY OF COINCIDENCE 355 

satisfactory. The man, affable and courteous, explained 
in a roundabout way that he !iad made use of two 
clutches, and then toward the er.d of the interview, when 
Franklin remarked, "You know, of course, that the idea 
of transmission was worked out some time before 1893" 
(the year Haynes built his first car), he replied, "You 
have to give those fellows credit for a great deal" — a 
very indefinite answer, as you see. 

But to me the man was fascinating as a man, and 
I was pleased to hear him explain anything he would. 

"I was already interested in gas and steam engines 
and motors of this type," he said, "and I just couldn't 
keep out of it." 

"In other words, you put an old idea into a new 
form," I suggested. 

"Yes— just that." 

"Tell me — who bought your first car?" I inquired. 

"A doctor up in Chicago," he smiled. "He has it 
yet." 

"Of course, you thought you could make money out 
of it?" 

"Well, I built my first car with the idea of having 
one for myself, really. I have a turn for mechanics. I 
borrowed enough money to begin manufacturing at once 
— took in a partner." 

"And then what?" 

"Well, the machine was a success. We just grew. 
In a few months we were behind on our orders, and al- 
ways have been since." 

He appeared too tired and weary to be actively at the 
head of any business at this time. Yet he went on tell- 
ing us a little of his trade struggles and what he thought 
of the future of the automobile — in connection with 
farming, railroads and the like — then he suddenly 
changed to another subject. 

/ "But I'm not nearly so interested in automobiles as 
I was," he observed smilingly, at the same time diving 
into his pocket and producing what looked like a silver 
knife. "My son and I" — he waved an inclusive hand 



3s6 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

toward an adjoining room built of red brick, and which 
seemed to be fliclcering romantically as to its walls with 
the flame reflections of small furnace fires — "have in- 
vented a thing which we call stellak, which is five hun- 
dred times harder than steel and cuts steel just as you 
would cut wood with an ordinary knife." 

"Well, how did you invent that?" I asked. 

"We had need of something of that kind here, and my 
son and I invented it." 

"You just decided what to do, did you? But why did 
you call it stellak?" I persisted. 

"After Stella, star, because the metal turned out to 
be so bright. It has some steel in it, too." 

He shifted his arms, sank his head into the palm of 
his left hand, and gazed at me solemnly. 

"All the processes are patented," he added, with a 
kind of unconscious caution which amused me. I felt as 
though he imagined we were looking too curiously into 
the workshop, where the perfecting processes were still 
going on, and might desire to steal his ideas. 

"There ought to be a real fortune in that," I said. 

"Yes," he replied, with a kind of lust for money show- 
ing in his face, although he was already comfortably rich 
and daily growing richer as well as sicker, "we're already 
behind on our orders. Everybody wants to see it. We 
can use a lot ourselves if we can just make it fast enough." 

There was a time in my life when I would have en- 
vied a man of this type, or his son, the mere possession 
of money seemed such an important thing to me. Later 
on, it became the sign manual of certain limitations of 
thought which at first irritated and then bored me. Now 
I can scarcely endure the presence of a mind that sees 
something in money as money — the mere possession of 
it. If the mind does not race on to lovelier or more 
important things than money can buy, it has no import 
to the world, no more, at least, than is involved in the 
syphoning of a clam. We must have grocers and brew- 
ers and butchers and bakers — but if we were never to 
have more than these or anything different or new 1 1 



CHAPTER XLIV 

THE FOLKS AT CARMEL 

The run to Carmel, Franklin's home, was not long 
— say, forty miles — and we made it in a downpour and 
were silent most of the way. It was so dark, and damp 
and gloomy that no one seemed to want to talk, and 
yet I took a melancholy comfort in considering how ab- 
solutely cheerless the day was. I could not help re- 
flecting, as we sped along, how at its worst life persist- 
ently develops charm, so that if one were compelled to 
live always in so gloomy a world, one would shortly be- 
come inured to it, or the race would, and think nothing 
of it. 

Once Speed called my attention to a group of cattle 
with their heads to wind and rain, and asked, "Do you 
know why they stand that way?" 

"No," I replied. 

"Well, all animals turn their fighting end to any trou- 
ble. If those were horses, now, their rump would be 
to the rain." 

"I see," I said. "They fight with their heels." 

"Like some soldiers," said Franklin drily. 

In another place we saw another great stretch of 
beech woods, silvery in the rain, and Franklin commented 
on the characteristic presence of these groves everywhere 
in Indiana. There was one near his home, he said, and 
there had been one in every town I had ever lived in in 
this state. 

At dusk we reached Westfield, only six miles from 
his home, where the Quakers lived. This was one of 
those typical community towns, with standardized cot- 
tages of grey-white wood and rather stately trees in 
orderly rows. Because of a difficulty here with one of 

357 



358 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

the lamps, which would not light, we had to stop a while, 
until it grew quite dark. A lost chicken ran crying out 
of a neighboring cornfield, and we shooed it back towards 
its supposed home, wondering whether the rain and wind 
or some night prowler would not kill it. It was very 
much excited, running and squeaking constantly — a fine 
call to any fox or weasel. Chickens are so stupid. 

Presently we came into Carmel, in the night and rain, 
but there being few lights, I could not make out any- 
thing. The car turned into a yard somewhere and 
stopped at a side door, or porch. We got out and a lit- 
tle woman, grey and small, cheerful and affectionate, as 
became a doting mother, came out and greeted us, kissing 
Franklin. 

"What kept you so long?" she asked, in a familiar 
motherly fashion. "We thought you were going to get 
here by noon." 

"So did we," replied Franklin drily. "I wired you, 
though." 

"Yes, I know. Your father's gone to bed. He stayed 
up as long as he could. Come right in here, please," 
she said to me, leading the way, while Franklin stopped 
to search the car. I followed, damp and heavy, won- 
dering if the house would be as cheerful as I hoped. 

It was. It was the usual American small-town home, 
built with the number of rooms supposed to be appro- 
priate for a given number of people or according to your 
station in life. A middle class family of some means, 
I believe, is supposed to have a house containing ten 
or twelve rooms, whether they need them or not. A 
veranda, as I could see, ran about two sides, and there 
was a lawn with trees. Within, the furnishings were 
substantial after their kind — good middle-west furniture. 
''^Franklin's studio, at the back, as I discovered later, was 
charmingly appointed.) There were some of his early 
drawings on the wall, which love had framed and pre- 
served. They reminded me of my family's interest in 
me. A tall, slim, dark girl, anaemic but with glistening 
black eyes, came in and greeted me. She was a sister, 



THE FOLKS AT CARMEL 359 

I understood — a milliner, by trade, taking her vacation 
here. As she came, she called to another girl who would 
not come — why I could not at first comprehend. This 
was a niece to whom Franldin more than once on the 
way out had referred as being superiorly endowed tem- 
peramentally, and as possessing what spiritualists or 
theosophists refer to as an "old soul," she was so intel- 
ligent. He could not explain her natural wisdom save on 
the ground of her having lived before. 

"Some people just insist on being shy," said the sis- 
ter. "They are so temperamental." 

She showed me to my room, and then went off to help 
get us something to eat. 

Alone, I examined my surroundings, unpacked my 
things, opened a double handful of mail, and then came 
down and sat with the mother and sister at supper. It 
being late, bacon and eggs were our portion, and some 
cake — a typical late provision for anyone in America. 

I wish I might accurately portray, in all its simplicity, 
and placidity, the atmosphere I found here. This house 
was so still — and the town. Mrs. Booth, Franklin's 
mother, seemed so essentially the middle West, even In- 
diana mother, with convictions and yet a genial tolerance 
of much. Making the best of a difficult world was writ- 
ten all over the place. There was a little boy here, 
adopted from somewhere because his parents were dead, 
who seemed inordinately fond of Franklin, as indeed 
Franklin seemed of him. I had had stories of this boy 
all the way out, and how through him Franklin was 
gaining (or regaining, perhaps, I had better say) a 
knowledge of the ethics and governing rules of boy-land. 
It was amusing to see them together now, the boy with 
sharp, bird-like eyes devouring every detail of his older 
friend's appearance and character — Franklin amused, 
fatherly, meditative, trying to make the most and best 
of all the opportunities of life. We sat in the "front 
room," or "parlor," and listened to the Victrola render- 
ing pieces by Bert Williams and James Whitcomb Riley 
and Tchaikowsky and Weber and Fields and Beethoven 



36o A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

— the usual medley of the sublime and the ridiculous 
found in so many musical collections. Franklin had told 
me that of late — only in the last two or three years — 
his father had begun to imagine that there might or must 
be in music something which would explain the world's, 
to him, curious interest in it! Hitherto, on his farm, 
where there had been none, he had scoffed at it! 

The next morning I arose early, as I thought — eight 
o'clock — and going out on the front porch encountered 
an old, grizzled man, who looked very much like the 
last portraits of the late General Sherman, and who 
seemed very much what he was, or had been — a soldier, 
and then latterly a farmer. Now he was all gnarled and 
bent. His face was grizzled with a short, stubby grey 
beard. The eyes were rather small and brown and 
looked canny. He got up with difficulty, a cane assist- 
ing him, and offered me a withered hand. I felt sym- 
pathy for all age. 

"Well, ya got here, did ya?" he inquired shortly. 
There was a choppy brevity about his voice which I 
liked. He seemed very self sufficient, genial and shrewd, 
for all his years. "We expected ya last night. I couldn't 
wait up, though. I did stay up till eight. That's pretty 
late for me — usually go to bed at seven. Have a nice 
trip?" 

We sat down and I told him. His eyes went over 
me like a swift feeling hand. 

"Well, you're just the man I want to talk to," he said, 
with a kind of crude eagerness. "You from New York 
State?" 

"Yes." 

"Franklin tells me that Governor Whitman has got 
In bad, refusing to pardon that fellow Becker. He says 
he thinks it will hurt him politically. What do you 
think?" 

"No," I replied. "I think not. I believe it will help 
him, if he doesn't injure himself in any other way." 

"That's what I think," he exclaimed, with a kind of 



THE FOLKS AT CARMEL 361 

defiant chuckle. "I never did think he knew what he was 
talking about." 

On our way west, as I have indicated, Franklin had 
been telling me much of his father's and his own up- 
bringing. They were types, as I judged, not much cal- 
culated either to understand or sympathize with each 
other — Franklin the sensitive, perceptive artist; his fa- 
ther the sheer, aggressive political soldier type. The one 
had artistic imagination, the other scarcely any imagi- 
nation at all. I could see that. Yet both had a certain 
amount of practical understanding backed by conviction, 
which could easily bring them into conflict. I felt a touch 
of something here, as though this father would be rather 
gratified if he could prove his son to be in a false posi- 
tion. It amused me, for I knew from what I had heard 
that Franklin would be amused too. He was so tolerant. 

More than that, I discovered a streak in the father 
which I think is to be found in thousands of countrymen 
the world over, in all lands, namely, that of pruriency, 
and that in the face of a rural conventionalism and even 
a religious bent which frowns on evidence of any tend- 
ency in that direction on the part of others, especially 
those most immediately related to them. Rural life is pecu- 
liar in this respect, somewhat different to that of the tribes 
of the city, who have so much more with which to sat- 
isfy themselves. Most isolated countrymen — or perhaps 
I had better modify that and say many confined to the 
silences of the woods and fields and the ministrations 
of one woman, or none — have an Intense curiosity In re- 
gard to sex; which works out In strange, often naive ways. 
In this instance it showed Itself shortly in connection 
with some inquiry I made In regard to local politics — how 
the next election was coming out (I knew that would in- 
terest him) and who the local leaders were. Soon this 
resulted in the production of a worn and dingy slip of 
paper which he handed me, chuckling. 

"What do you think of that?" he asked. I took it 
and read it, smiling the while. 

It seemed that some local wag — the owner of the prin- 



362 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

cipal drug store — had written and circulated a humorous 
double entendre description of a golf game and some- 
one's failure as a golfer, which was intended really to 
show that the man in the case was impotent. You can 
easily imagine how the thing was woriced out. It was 
cleverly done, and to a grown-up person was quite harm- 
less. 

But the old gentleman was obviously greatly stirred 
by it. It fascinated and no doubt shocked him a little 
(all the more so since sex was over for him) and aroused 
in him a spirit of mischief. 

"Well, it's very funny," I said. "Rather good. What 
of it?" 

"What do you think of a man that'll get up a thing 
like that and hand it around where children are apt to 
get a hold of It?" 

"As regards the children," I commented, "it's rather 
bad, I suppose, although I've seen but few children in 
my hfe that weren't as sexually minded, if not more so, 
than their elders. I wouldn't advise putting this In their 
hands, however. As for grownups, well, it's just a trivial 
bit of business, I should say," I concluded. 

"You think so?" he said, restoring the paper to his 
vest pocket and twinkling his grey eyes. 

"Yes," I persisted. 

"Well, the fellow that got this up and handed it 
around here wants to head the republican county ticket 
this fall. I think I've got him, with this. I don't mean 
that he shall." 

"Do you mean he's a bad character?" I smiled. 

"Oh, no, not that exactly. He's not a bad fellow, but 
he's not a good leader. He's got too big a head. He 
can't win and he oughtn't to be nominated, and I don't 
mean that he shall be, if I can prevent it." 

He was chewing tobacco as he talked, quite as a farmer 
at a fence corner, and now he expectorated solemnly, 
defiantly, conclusively. 

"You don't like him personally, then?" I queried, curi- 
ous as to the reason for this procedure. 







A ■•* _^<' 



^ 



lOtij).., . li'Hi 




IN CAR MEL 
Franklin's Home Town 



THE FOLKS AT CARMEL 363 

"Oh, I like him well enough. He ain't no good as a 
leader, though — not to my way of thinking." 

"Do you mean to say you intend to use this against him 
in the campaign?" 

"I told him so, and some of the other fellows too, 
down at the post office the other day. I told him they'd 
better not nominate him. If they did, I'd circulate this. 
He knows it'll kill him if I do. I showed it to the Quaker 
minister here the other night, and he 'lowed it 'ud do for 
him." 

"What's a Quaker minister?" I asked, suddenly inter- 
rupting the main theme of our conversation, curious as 
to the existence of such an official. "I never heard of the 
Quakers having a minister. I know they have elders and 
ministers in a general or democratic sense — men whose 
counsels are given more or less precedence over that o'^ 
others, but no particular minister." 

"Well, they have out here," he replied. "I don't know 
where or when they got 'em. This one lives right over 
there next the Quaker Church. 

"So you have a Quaker Church instead of a meeting 
house, do you?" I commented. 

"Yes, and they have congregational singing and an 
organ," observed the dark-eyed sister, who was just com- 
ing up now. "You don't hear of anything like that in 
a Friends' meeting house in the East, but you will here 
tomorrow." She smiled and called us in to breakfast. 

It appeared that our host had eaten at six A. M., or 
five, but he came in with me for sociability's sake. 

The discussion of the pornographic jocosity and its 
political use was suspended while we had breakfast, but 
a little later, the veranda being cleared and the old gen- 
tleman still sitting here, rocking and ruminating, I said: 

"Do you mean to say you intend to use that leaflet 
against this man in case he runs?" 

"I intend to use it," he replied definitely, but still with 
a kind of pleasant, chuckling manner, as though it were 
a great joke. "I don't think they'll nominate him, 
though, but if they do, it'll kill him sure." 



364 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

He smiled enigmatically and went on rocking. 

"But you're a republican?" 

"Yes, I'm a republican." 

"And he's a republican?" 

"Yes." 

"Well, politics must certainly be stirring things out 
here," I commented. 

He chuckled silently, like an old rooster in a garden, 
the while he moved to and fro in his rocker, ruminating 
his chew of tobacco, and then finally he added, "It'll do 
for him sure." 

I had to smile. The idea of stirring up a fight over 
so pornographic a document in a strictly religious com- 
munity, and thus giving it a wider circulation than ever 
it could have in any other way, by a man who would 
have called himself religious, I suppose, had an element 
of humor in it. 

At breakfast it was that I met the girl who refused 
to greet me the night before. As I looked at her for 
the first time, it struck me that life is constantly brewing 
new draughts of femininity, calculated to bewray or 
affright the world — Helens or Circes. The moralists 
and religionists and those who are saintly minded and 
believe that nature seeks only a conservative or coolly 
virtuous state have these questions to answer: 

( 1 ) How is it that for every saint born into the world 
there is also a cruel or evil minded genius born practi- 
cally at the same time? The twain are ever present. 

(2) That for every virtuous maid there is one who has 
no trace of virtue? — possibly many? 

(3) That while an evil minded person may be reform- 
ing, or an immoral person becoming moral, nature itself 
(which religion is supposed to be reforming) is breeding 
others constantly, fresh and fresh, new types of those 
who, sex hungry or wealth hungry or adventure hungry, 
have no part or parcel with morality? The best religion 
or morals appear to be able to do is to contend with 
nature, which is constantly breeding the un- or immoral, 
and generating blood lusts which result in all the crimes 



THE FOLKS AT CARMEL 365 

we know, and by the same token, all the religions. How 
is that? 

These thoughts were generated, more or less, by my 
observation of this girl, for as I looked at her, solid 
and dimpling, I felt certain that here nature had bred 
another example of that type of person whom the moral- 
ists are determined to look upon as oversexed. She had 
all the provocative force that goes with a certain kind of 
beauty. I am not saying that she was so — merely that 
it was so she impressed me. Her mouth, for one thing, 
was full — pouty — and she was constantly changing its 
expression, as if aware of its import. Her eyes were 
velvety and swimming. Her neck and arms were heavy 
— rounded in a sensuous way. She walked with what to 
me seemed a distinct consciousness of the lines of her 
body, although as a matter of fact she may not have 
been. She was preternaturally shy and evasive, looking 
about as if something very serious were about to happen, 
as if she had to be most careful of her ways and looks, 
and yet really not being so. Her whole manner was at 
once an invitation and repulsion — the two carefully bal- 
anced so as to produce a static and yet an irritating state. 
I half liked and disliked her. If she had been especially 
friendly, no doubt I should have liked her very much. 
Since she was so wholly evasive, I fancied that I could 
dislike her quite as much. 

And at that we got on fairly well. I made no friendly 
overtures of any kind, and yet I half felt as if she might 
be expecting something of the kind. She hung about for 
a time, came to and fro, and then disappeared. She 
changed her dress while we were down town, and seemed 
even more attractive. She came out and sat on the porch 
next to me for a time, and I tried to talk to her, but she 
made me feel uncomfortable, as though I were trying 
to force attentions on her. 

Apparently she was as much a puzzle to some others 
as she was to me, for Franklin told me that she had once 
run away from the academy where she was being 
schooled, and had come here instead, her parents being 



366 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

dead and these being her nearest friends or relatives. 
Her guardian, appointed by law, was greatly troubled by 
her. Also, that she had quite a little money coming 
to her, and that once she had expressed a desire to be 
given a horse and gun and allowed to go west — a sixteen- 
year-old girl ! She told me, among other things, that she 
wanted to go on the stage, or into moving picture work. 
I could not help looking at her and wondering what 
storms and disasters might not follow in the wake of 
such a temperament. She would be so truly fascinating 
and possibly utterly destructive. 

In connection with this type of temperament or 
at any rate the temperament which is not easily fixed in 
one passional vise, I have this to say: that, in spite of all 
the theories which hold in regard to morals and mo- 
nogamy, life in general appears to be chronically and 
perhaps incurably varietistic and pluralistic in its tastes 
and emotions. We hear much of one life, one love, but 
how many actually attain to that ideal — if it is one. Per- 
sonally I have found it not only possible, but by a curious 
and entirely fortuitous combination of circumstances al- . 
most affectionately unavoidable, to hold three, four — 
even as many as five and six — women in regard or the 
emotional compass of myself, at one and the same time, 
not all to the same degree, perhaps, or in the same way, 
but each for certain qualities which the others do not 
possess. I will not attempt to dignify this by the name 
of love. I do not assume for a moment that it is love, 
but that it is a related state is scarcely to be questioned. 
Whether it is a weakness or a strength remains to be 
tested by results in individual cases. To some it might 
prove fatal, to others not. Witness the Mormons! As 
for myself I do not think it is. Some of my most dra- 
matic experiences and sufferings, as well as my keenest 
mental Illuminations, have resulted from intimate, affec- 
tionate contact with women. I have learned most from 
those strange, affectionately dependent and yet artistic 
souls who somehow crave physical and spiritual sympathy 
in the great dark or light in which we find ourselves — 



THE FOLKS AT CARMEL 367 

this very brief hour here. Observing their moods, their 
vanities, their sanities, their affectional needs, I have 
seen how absolutely impossible it is to balance up the 
socalled needs of life in any satisfactory manner, or to 
establish an order which, however seemingly secure for 
the time being, will not in the end dry rot or decay. 

I say it out of the depths of my life and observation 
that there is no system ever established anywhere which 
is wholly good. If you establish matrimony and monog- 
amy, let us say, and prove that it is wholly ideal for 
social entertainment, or the rearing and care of chil- 
dren, you at once shut out the fact that it is the death 
of affectional and social experience — that it is absolutely 
inimical to the roving and free soul which must comb 
the world for understanding, and that the spectacles 
which entertain the sober and stationary in art, litera- 
ture, science, indeed every phase of life, would never be 
if all maintained the order and quiet which monogamy 
suggests. 

Yet monogamy is good — nothing better for its pur- 
pose. Two souls are entitled to cling together in affec- 
tional embrace forever and ever, if they can. It is wholly 
wonderful and beautiful. But if all did so, where, then, 
would be a story like Carmen, for instance, or an opera 
like Tristan and Isolde, or I Pagliacci, or Madame But- 
terfly, or Louise? If we all accepted a lock-step routine, 
or were compelled to — but need I really argue? Is not 
life at its very best anachronistic? Does it not grow by 
horrible alternatives — going so far along one line, on 
one leg, as it were, and then suddenly abandoning every- 
thing in that direction (to sudden decay and death, per- 
haps) and as suddenly proceeding in an entirely different 
direction (apparently) on the other leg? All those who 
find their fixed conditions, their orders and stable states 
suddenly crumbling about them are inclined to cry: 
"There is no God," "Life is a cruel hell," "Man is a 
beast — an insane egoist." 

Friends, let me suggest something. Have faith to 
believe that there is a larger intelligence at work which 



368 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

does not care for you or me at all — or if it does, only 
to this extent, that it desires to use us as a carpenter 
does his tools, and does use us, whether we will or no. 
There is some idle scheme of entertainment (possibly 
self-entertainment) which is being accomplished by some 
power which is not necessarily outside man, but working 
through him, of which he, in part, is the expression. This 
power, in so far as we happen to be essential or useful 
to it, appears beneficent. A great or successful person 
might be inclined to look on it in that light. On the 
other hand, one not so useful, a physical failure, for 
instance — one blind or halt or maimed — would look upon 
it as maleficent, a brooding, destructive demon, rejoic- 
ing in evil. Neither hypothesis is correct. It is as good 
as the successful and happy feel it to be — as bad as the 
miserable think it is bad — only it is neither. It is some- 
thing so large and strange and above our understanding 
that it can scarcely sense the pain or joy of one single 
individual — only the pains or joys of masses. 

It recognizes only a mass delight or a mass sorrow. 
Can you share, or understand, the pains or delights of 
any one single atom in your body? You cannot. Why 
may there not be an oversoul that bears the same rela- 
tionship to you that you bear to the individual atoms or 
ions of your physical cosmos? Some undernourished, 
partially developed ion in you may cry, "The power 
which rules me is a devil." But you are not a devil. Nor 
does it necessarily follow that the thing that makes you 
is one. You really could not help that particular atom 
if you would. So over us may be this oversoul which 
is as helpless in regard to us as we are in regard to our 
constituent atoms. It is a product of something else 
still larger — above it. There is no use trying to find 
out what that is. Let the religionist call it God if he 
will, or the sufferer a devil. Do you bring all your forti- 
tude and courage to bear, and do all that you can to 
keep yourself busy — serenely employed. There is no 
other answer. Get all you can that will make you or 
others happy. Think as seriously as you may. Count 



THE FOLKS AT CARMEL 369 

all the costs and all the dangers — or don't count them, 
just as you will — but live as fully and intelligently as you 
can. If, in spite of cross currents of mood and passion, 
you can maiie any other or others happy, do so. It will 
be hard at best. But strive to be employed. It is the 
only surcease against the evil of too much thought. 



CHAPTER XLV 

AN INDIANA VILLAGE 

While we were sitting on the veranda — Franklin's 
father and myself — Speed came by on his way down town, 
and Mr. Booth, having gathered a sense of approval, 
perhaps, for the pornographic document from my atti- 
tude, drew it out and showed it to him. 

"Gee!" exclaimed Speed, after reading it. "I must 
get some of those." 

Soon after, Franklin came out and, seeing the docu- 
ment and reading it, seemed troubled over the fact that 
his father should be interested in such a thing. I think 
he felt that it threw an unsatisfactory light on his sire, 
or that I, not understanding, might think so; but, after 
I made it clear that it was more or less of a Cervantesque 
bit of humor to me, he became more cheerful. 

A little while thereafter we went downtown, Frank- 
lin and I, to inspect the village, and to see some of those 
peculiar natives of whom he had been talking. I think 
he must have a much better eye for rural and countryside 
types and their idiosyncrasies than I have, for I failed 
to gather any of those gay nuances which somehow he 
had made me feel were there. Little things in rural 
life which probably attract and hold his attention entirely 
escape me, as, for instance, the gaunt and spectacled old 
gentleman looking over his glasses into the troublesome 
works of his very small Ford. My own powers of ob- 
servation in that direction, and my delight in them, are 
limited to a considerable extent by my sense of drama. Is 
a thing dramatic? Or at least potentially so? If not, it 
is apt to lose interest for me. As for Franklin, he was 
never weary of pointing out little things, and I enjoyed 
almost more of what was to be seen here and elsewhere 

370 



AN INDIANA VILLAGE 371 

because of his powers of indication than from my own 
observation. 

Thus, on the way west, he had been telling me of one 
man who was almost always more or less sick, or thought 
he was, because, through one of the eccentricities of hypo- 
chondria, he discovered that one got more attention, if 
not sympathy, being sick than well. And when we came 
to the postoffice door here he was before it, complaining 
of a pain in his chest! It seemed to me, in looking at 
him, that by a process of thinking, if that were really 
true, he had made himself ill. He looked "very poorly," 
as he expressed it, and as though he might readily sink 
into a destructive illness. Yet Franklin assured me that 
there had really been nothing the matter with him to 
begin with, but that jealousy of sympathy bestowed upon 
a cripple, the one who was to run our car for us south 
from here, had caused him to resort to this method of 
getting some for himself! 

Also, there was another young man who had been 
described to me as a village wag — one of three or four 
who were certain to amuse me; but when he now came 
forward to greet me, and I was told that this was the 
person, I was not very much interested. He was of the 
type that has learned to consider himself humorous, 
necessarily so, with a reputation for humor to sustain. 
"I must be witty," says such a one to himself, and so the 
eye is always cocked, the tongue or body set for a comic 
remark or movement. The stranger feels obliged by the 
very atmosphere which goes with such a person to smile 
anticipatorially, as who should say, something deliciously 
funny is soon to be said. I did not hear anything very 
humorous said, however. 

Incidentally, I also met Bert, the crippled boy, who 
was to be our chauffeur south from this point. He was 
a youth in whose career Franklin seemed greatly inter- 
ested, largely, I think, because other people of the vil- 
lage were inclined to be indifferent to or make sport of 
him. The boy was very bright and of a decidedly de- 
termined and characterful nature. Although both legs, 



372 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

below the hips, but not below the ankles, were prac- 
tically useless, due to a schooltime wrestling bout and 
fall, he managed with the aid of a pair of crutches to get 
about with considerable ease and speed. There was no 
least trace of weakness or complaint or need of sympathy 
in his manner. Indeed, he seemed more self-reliant and 
upstanding than most of the other people I met here. 
How, so crippled, he would manage to run the car puz- 
zled me. Franklin's father had already expressed himself 
to me as opposed to the idea. 

"I can't understand what he sees in that fellow," he 
said to me early this morning. "He's a reckless little 
devil, and I don't think he really knows anything about 
machinery. Frank will stick to him, though. If it were 
my machine, I wouldn't have him near it." 

Now that I looked at Bert, though, I felt that he had 
so much courage and hope and optimism — such an in- 
triguing look in his eyes — that I quite envied him. He 
was assistant mail clerk or something at the post office, 
and when I came up and had been introduced through 
the window, he promptly handed me out several letters. 
When I told Franklin what his father had said, he merely 
smiled. "The old man is always talking like that," he 
said. "Bert's all right. He's better than Speed." 

It takes a certain slow-moving type of intellect to 
enjoy or endure life in a small country town. To be a 
doctor in a place hke this! or a lawyer! or a merchant! 
or a clerk ! 

In the main, in spite of many preliminary descriptions, 
Carmel did not interest me as much as I thought it would, 
or might. It was interesting — as one says with the wave 
of a hand or a shrug of the shoulders. Of more im. 
port to me was the Booth household, and the peculiar 
girl who would not come out to greet me at first, and 
Franklin's father and mother and sister. This day 
passed rather dully, reading proofs which had been sent 
me and listening to passing expresses which tore through 
here northward and southward, to and from Indianap- 
olis, only fifteen miles away — never even hesitating, as 



AN INDIANA VILLAGE 373 

the negro said — and listening to the phonograph, on 
which I put all the records I could find. Three recita- 
tions by James Whitcomb Riley, "Little Orphant Annie," 
"The Raggedy Man" and "My Grandfather Squeers," 
captured my fancy so strongly that I spent several hours 
just listening to them over and over, they were so de- 
lightful. Then I would vary my diet with Tchaikowsky, 
Mendelssohn, Beethoven and Bert Williams. 

During the afternoon Franklin and I went for a walk 
in a nearby woods — a beech and oak grove — the beeches 
occupying one section and the oaks another. Truly, grey 
and lowery described this day. It was raining, but in 
addition the clouds hung so low and thick and dark that 
they were almost smothery in their sense of closeness. 
And it was warm and damp, quite like a Turkish bath. 
I had arrayed myself in great thigh-length rubber boots 
borrowed from Franklin's father, and my raincoat and 
a worthless old cap, so that I was independent of the 
long, dripping wet grass and the frequent pools of water. 

"I know what I'll do," I exclaimed suddenly. "I'll go 
in swimming. It's just the day. Fine!" 

When we reached the stream in the depth of the woods 
I was even more enchanted with the idea, the leafy depth 
of the hollow was so dark and wet, the water so seeth- 
ing and yellow, a veritable whirlpool, made so by the 
heavy rains everywhere about. Franklin would not come 
in with me. Instead, he stood on the shore and told 
me local tales of growths and deaths and mishaps and 
joys to many. 

My problem was how to undress without getting my 
clothes wet and my feet so muddy when I came out 
that I could not put on my boots. By thought I solved 
it. I took off my raincoat, spread it down on the shore 
as a floor, then took off my boots and stood on it, dry 
and clean. Under one corner of it I tucked all my 
clothes to protect them from the rain; then, naked, I 
plunged into the swirling, boiling flood. It nearly swept 
me away, so terrific was the onslaught of the waters. I 
caught a branch hanging low, and, with my feet braced 



374 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

against a few rocks below, lay flat and let the water rush 
over me. It was wonderful to lie in this warm, yellow 
water, a bright gold color, really, and feel it go foam- 
ing over my breast and arms and legs. It tugged at me 
so, quite like a wrestling man, that I had to fight it to 
keep up. My arms ached after a time, but I hung on, 
loving the feel of it. Sticks and leaves went racing past. 
I would kick up a stone and instantly it would be swept 
onward toward some better lodging place farther down. 
I figured an angle finally by which I could make shore, 
letting go and paddling sidewise, and so I did, coming 
up bumped and scratched, but happy. Then I dipped 
my feet in the water, stood on my raincoat, drying my- 
self with my handkerchief, and finally, dressed and re- 
freshed, strode up shore. 

Then we went off flower gathering, and made a big 
bouquet of iron weed. He told me how for years he 
had been coming to this place, how he loved the great 
oaks and the silvery beeches, huddled in a friendly com- 
pany to the north, and how he had always wanted to 
paint them and some day would. The mania people have 
for cutting their names on beech trunks came up, for here 
were so many covered with lover's hearts — their names 
inside — and so many inscriptions, all but obliterated by 
time that I could not help thinking how lives flow by 
quite like the water in the stream below. 

Then we went back, to a fine chicken dinner and a 
banana pie made especially for me, and the phonograph 
and the rushing trains, the whistles of which I was never 
tired hearing — they sounded so sad. 

Another black, rainy night, and then the next morn- 
ing the sun came up on one of the most perfect days 
imaginable. It was dewy and glistening and fragrant 
and colorful — a wonder world. What with the new wet 
trees and grass as cool and delightful as any day could 
be, it was like paradise. There was a warm south wind. 
I went out on the lawn and played ball with Franklin, 
missing three fourths of all throws and nearly breaking 
my thumb. I sat on the porch and looked over the morn- 



AN INDIANA VILLAGE 375 

ing paper, watching the outing automobiles of many na- 
tives go spinning by and feeling my share in that thrill 
and tingle which comes over the world on a warm Sunday 
morning in summer. It was so lovely. You could just 
feel that everybody everywhere was preparing to have 
a good time and that nothing mattered much. All the 
best Sunday suits, all the new straw hats, all the dainty 
frocks, all the everything were being brought forth and 
put on. Franklin disappeared for an hour and came back 
looking so spick and span and altogether Sunday — sum- 
mery — and like Ormonde and Miami Beach, that I felt 
quite out of it. I had a linen suit and white shoes and 
a sport hat, but somehow I felt that they were a little 
uncalled for here, and my next best wasn't as good as his. 
Curses! He even had on perfect, glistening, glorious 
patent leather shoes, and a new blue suit. 

It was while I was sitting here inwardly groaning over 
my fate that a young girl came swinging up, one of the 
most engaging I had seen anywhere on this trip — a lithe, 
dancing figure, with bright blue eyes, chestnut hair and 
an infectious smile. I had observed her approaching 
some seventy feet away, and beside her Speed, and I 
was wondering whether she was merely a town girl of 
his acquaintance or by any chance that half sister of 
whom I had heard Franklin and Speed speaking on the 
way west, saying that she was very talented and was 
hoping to come to New York to study music. Before I 
had time to do more than compliment her in my mind, 
she was here before me, having tripped across the grass 
in a fascinating way, and was holding out a hand and 
laughing into my eyes. 

"We've been hearing about your coming for several 
days now. Speed wrote us nearly a week ago that you 
might come." 

It flattered me to be so much thought of. 

"I've been hearing nice things of you, too," I said, 
studying her pretty nose and chin and the curls about 
her forehead. In any apologia pro vita sua which I may 



376 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

ever compose, I will confess frankly and heartily to a 
weakness for beauty in the opposite sex. 

She seemed inclined to talk, but was a little bashful. 
From her general appearance I gathered that she was 
not only of a gay, lightsome disposition, but a free soul, 
spiritually as yet not depressed by the local morality 
of the day — the confining chains of outward appearances 
and inward, bonehead fears. I had the feeling that she 
was beginning to be slightly sex conscious without having 
solved any of its intricacies as yet — just a humming bird, 
newly on the wing. She hung about, answering and ask- 
ing questions of no import. Presently Speed had to leave 
and she went along, with a brisk, swinging step. As she 
neared the corner of the lawn she turned just for a 
second and smiled. 

Apropos of this situation and these two girls who 
curiously and almost in spite of myself were uppermost 
in my mind — the second one most particularly, I should 
like to say — that of all things in life which seem to me 
to be dull and false, it is the tendency of weak souls 
in letters and in life to gloze over this natural chemical 
action and reaction between the sexes, to which we are 
all subject, and to make a pretence that our thoughts 
are something which they are not — sweet, lovely, noble, 
pure. It has become a duty among males and females, 
quite too much so, I think, to conceal from each other 
and from themselves, even, the fact that physical beauty 
in the opposite sex stirs them physically and mentally, 
naturally leading to thoughts of union. 

What has come over life that it has become so super- 
fine in its moods? Why should we make such a puri- 
tanic row over the natural instincts of man? I will admit 
that in part nature herself is the cause of this, the instinct 
to restrain being possibly as great as the instinct to 
liberate, and that she demands that you make a pretence 
and live a lie, only it seems to me it would be a little 
better for the mental health of the race if it were more 
definitely aware of this. Certainly it ought not be con- 



AN INDIANA VILLAGE 377 

nected with religious illusion. It may not be possible, 
because of the varying temperaments of people, for any- 
one to express what he feels or thinks at any precise 
moment — its reception is too uncertain — but surely it 
is permissible in print, which is not unakin in its char- 
acter to the Catholic confessional, to say what one knows 
to be so. 

All normal men crave women — and particularly beau- 
tiful women. All married men and priests are supposed, 
by the mere sacrament of matrimony or holy orders, 
thereafter to feel no interest in any but one (or in the 
case. of the priest none) of the other sex — or if they do, 
to rigidly suppress such desires. But men are men! And 
the women — many married and unmarried ones — don't 
want them to be otherwise. Life is a dizzy, glittering 
game of trapping and fishing and evading, and slaying 
and pursuing, despite all the religious and socalled moral 
details by which we surround it. Nature itself has an 
intense love of the chase. It loves snares, pitfalls, gins, 
traps, masks and mummeries, and even murder and death 
— yes, very much murder and death. It loves nothing so 
much as to build up a papier-mache wall of convention, 
and then slip round or crash through it. It has erected 
a phantasmagoria of laws which no one can understand, 
and no one can strictly adhere to without disaster, and 
to which few do strictly adhere. Justice, truth, mercy, 
right are all abstractions and not to be come at 
by any series of weights or measures. We pocket our 
unfair losses or unearned gains and smile at our luck. 
Curiously, in finance and commercial affairs men under- 
stand this and accept it as a not altogether bad game. 
It has the element in it which they recognize as sport. 
When it comes to sex, the feeling becomes somewhat more 
serious. A man who will smile at the loss of a hundred, 
a thousand, or even a million dollars, will pull a grim 
countenance over the loss of a wife or a daughter. Death 
is the price in the judgment of some temperaments. In 
others it is despair. Why? And yet nature plans these 
traps and pitfalls. It is the all mother who schemes the 



378 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

Circe and Hellenic temperaments — the fox, the wolf, the 
lion. A raging, destroying bull, which insists on gor- 
mandizing all the females of a herd, is the product of 
nature, not of man. Man did not make the bull or the 
stallion, nor did they make themselves. Is nature to be 
controlled, made over, by man, according to some theory 
which man, a product of nature, has discovered? 

Gentlemen, here is food for a dozen schools of phi- 
losophy! Personally, I do not see that any theory or 
any code or any religion that has yet been devised solves 
anything. All that one can intelligently say is that they 
satisfy certain temperaments. Like those theorems and 
formulae in algebra and chemistry, which aid the student 
without solving anything in themselves, they make the 
living of life a little easier — for some. They are not 
a solution. They do not make over temperaments which 
are not adapted to their purposes. They do not assist 
the preternaturally weak, or restrain the super-strong. 
They merely, like a certain weave of mesh in fishing, hold 
some and let others get away — the very big and the 
very little. 

What sort of moralic scheme is that, anyhow, which 
governs thus? And why is poor, dull man such a uni- 
versal victim of it? 



CHAPTER XLVI 

A SENTIMENTAL INTERLUDE 

As we had planned it, we were to stay in Carmel only 
three days — from Friday until IVIonday — and then race 
south to Indianapolis, Terre Haute, Sullivan, Evansville, 
French Lick, Bloomington, back to Indianapolis, and 
after a day or night at Carmel for preparation, I might 
depart as I had planned, or I could stay here. Franklin 
suggested that I make his home my summering place — my 
room was mine for weeks if I cared to use it. 

Actually up to now I had been anxious to get on and 
have the whole trip done with, but here in Carmel I 
developed a desire to stay and rest awhile, the country 
about was so very simple and homey; but I concluded 
that I must not. 

Franklin had prepared a trip for Sunday afternoon 
which interested me very much. It was to be to the 
home of a celebrated automobile manufacturer, now 
dead, whose name, incidentally, had been in the papers 
for years, first as the President of the American Manu- 
facturers Association, a very noble organization of ma- 
terialists, I take it, and secondarily as the most strenuous 
opponent of organized labor that the country up to his 
day had produced. I hold no brief for organized labor 
any more than I do for organized manufacturers, being 
firmly convinced that both are entitled to organize and 
fight and that to the victors should belong the spoils; 
but at the present writing I would certainly sympathize 
with organized labor as being in the main the underdog, 
and wish it all the luck in the world. Personally, I be- 
lieve in equilibrium, with a healthy swinging of the 
pendulum of life and time to and fro between the rich 

379 



38o A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

and the poor — a pendulum which should cast down the 
rich of today and elevate them again tomorrow, or others 
like them, giving the underdog the pleasure of being 
the overdog quite regularly, and vice versa. I think 
that is what makes life interesting, if it is interesting. 

But as to this manufacturer, in spite of the entirely 
friendly things Franklin had to say of him, I had heard 
many other stories relating to him — his contentiousness, 
his rule of underpaying his labor, the way he finally broke 
down on a trip somewhere and forgot all the details of 
it, a blank space in his mind covering a period of two 
years. Franklin told me of his home, which was much 
more pleasant to hear about — a place down by a river 
near Indianapolis. According to Franklin, a good part 
of the estate was covered with a grove of wonderful 
trees, mostly beech. As you came to the*place there was 
a keeper's lodge by the gate which made you feel as if 
you were entering the historic domain of some old noble- 
man. The house was along a beautiful winding drive, 
bordered with a hedge of all sorts of flowers usually in 
bloom all through the summer. The house was very 
much hidden among the beech trees, a large red brick 
structure with many windows and tall chimneys; the lower 
story constructed of large field boulders, such as are 
found here. At the front and at the left of the main 
entrance this masonry projected to make an Immense 
porch, with wide massive arches and posts of the same 
great boulders. 

"The first time I ever saw it," Franklin explained, "I 
stepped out of the car and went up to ring the bell. It 

was a warm day, and Mrs. was sitting alone at 

the left end of this great porch, quietly observing a col- 
ored man servant who was playing a hose on the vines 
and the main inside wall of the porch, apparently to 
partly cool the atmosphere. She is a little, sweet, quiet 
woman, and as she rose to greet me, something in the 
great house and the boulders and in the quietness of 
the forest air about us, and perhaps in the gentle hu- 
mility of the woman herself, came to me and impressed 



A SENTIMENTAL INTERLUDE 381 

mc with the utter futility of building houses at ail; and 
of any man building a house beyond the ability of a 
woman to touch lovingly with her hands and to care 
for and make a home of. Some time later when I en- 
tered the house she was sitting alone in the great hall in 
the sort of dusk that pervaded it. I somehow felt that 
the house opposed her; that it was her enemy. I don't 
know; I may be wrong; it was only an impression." 

I have reproduced Franklin's description as near as 
I can. 

Of course I was interested to go. It promised a fine 
afternoon; only when the hour struck and we were off in 
our best feathers, two tires blew up and we were lucky 
to get to a garage. We limped back to Carmel, and I 
returned to my rocking chair on the front porch, watch- 
ing cars from apparently all over the state go by, and 
wondering what had become of the two girls I had met 
— they had disappeared for the day, apparently — and 
what could I do to amuse myself. I listened to stories 
of local eccentricities, freaks of character, a man who had 
died and left a most remarkable collection of stuffed birds 
and animals, quite a museum, which he had elaborated 
while running a bakery, or something of that sort — and 
so on and so forth. Local morality came in for its usual 
drubbing — the lies which people live — the things which 
they seem and are not. Personally, I like this subtlety of 
nature — I would not have all things open and aboveboard 
for anything. I like pretence when it is not snivelling, 
Pecksniffery, calculated to injure someone for the very 
crimes or deceits which you yourself are committing. 
Such rats should always be pulled from their holes and 
exposed to the light. 

Sitting on the veranda — Franklin felt called upon to 
do some work in his studio, a very attractive building 
at the rear of the lawn — I grew lonely and even 
despondent 1 It is a peculiarity of my nature that I suf- 
fer these spells out of a clear sky and at a moment's 
notice. I can be having the best time in the world, ap- 
parently (I am often amused thinking about it), and then 



382 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

of a sudden, the entertainment ceasing, the situation 
changing, I find myself heavily charged with gloom. I 
am getting oldl (I had these same spells at nineteen and 
twenty.) Life is slipping on and away! Relatives and 
friends are dying! Nothing endures! Fame is a 
damned mockery ! Affection is insecure or self-destroy- 
ing! Soon I am in the last stages of despair and looking 
around for some means (speculatively purely) to end it 
all. It is really too amusing — afterzvards. 

While I was so meditating the first young girl came 
back, with that elusive, enigmatic smile of hers, and two 
underdone striplings of about eighteen or nineteen, and 
another girl, intended largely as a foil. She was most 
becomingly and tantalizingly dressed in something which 
defies description, and played croquet — with the two 
youths who were persistently seeking her favor and ignor- 
ing the other maiden. I watched her until I became irri- 
tated by her coy self sufficiency, and the art with which 
she was managing the situation, — a thing which included 
me as someone to disturb, too. I got up and moved 
round to the other side of the house. 

That night after dinner, Franklin and I went to In- 
dianapohs on the trolley, and ignoring all the sights 
went to a great hotel grill, where, entirely surrounded 
by onyx and gilt and prism-hung candelabra, we had beer 
in a teapot, with teacups as drinking vessels, it being 
"against the law" to serve beer on Sunday. For the 
same reason it cost seventy cents — two humble "schoon- 
ers" of beer — for of course there was the service and 
the dear waiter with his itching palm. 

By ten-thirty the next morning the car, overhauled and 
cleaned, was at the door, our new chauffeur at the wheel, 
ready for the run south. 

I carried my bags down, put them into the car, and 
sat in it to wait. Franklin was off somewhere, in the 
heart of the vallage, arranging something. Suddenly I 
heard a voice. It had the tone I expected. Actually, I 
had anticipated it, in a psychic way. Looking up and 



iRnklm 




THE BEST OF INDIANAPOLIS 



A SENTIMENTAL INTERLUDE 383 

across a space of lawn two houses away, I saw the second 
girl of this meeting place standing out under an apple 
tree, with a little boy beside her, an infant the Speed 
family had adopted. 

She was most gay in her dress and mood — something 
eery and sylph-like. 

'Aren't you coming over to say goodby?" she called. 

I jumped up, ashamed of my lack of gallantry, and 
yet excusing myself on the ground that I was too timid 
to intrude before, and strolled over. She received me 
with a disturbed cordiality which was charming. 

"It's right mean of you," she said. 

"I was coming," I protested, "only I expected to put 
it over until Thursday — on my way back. That sounds 
rather bad, doesn't it, but really I wanted to come, only 
I was a little bit afraid." 

"You— afraid?" 

"Yes. Don't you think I can be?" 

"Yes, but not of us, I should think. I thought maybe 
you were going away for good without saying goodby." 

"Now, how could you?" I protested, knowing full well 
to the contrary. "How nice we look today. Such a 
pretty dress and the clean white shoes — and the ribbon." 

She was as gay and fluffy as a bit out of a bandbox. 

"Oh, no, I just put these on because I had to wear 
them about the house this morning." She smiled in a 
simple, agreeable way, only I fancied that she might have 
dressed on purpose. 

"Well, anyhow," I said — and we began to talk of 
school and her life and what she wanted to do. Just 
as I was becoming really interested, Franklin appeared, 
carrying a package. "Alas, here he is. And now I'll 
have to be going soon." 

"Yes," she said, quite simply, and with a little feel- 
ing. "You'll be coming back, though." 

"But only for a day, I'm afraid." 

"But you won't go away the next time without saying 
goodby, will you?" 



384 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

"Isn't that kind of you," I replied. "Are you sure 
you want me to say goodby?" 

"Indeed I do. I'll feel hurt if you don't." She held 
out her hand. There was a naive simplicity about it all 
that quite disarmed me and made it all innocent and 
charming. 

"Don't you think. I won't?" I asked, teasingly. And 
then as I looked at her she blanched in an odd, dis- 
turbed way, and turning to the boy called, "Come on, 
Billy," and ran to a side porch door, smiling back at me. 

"You won't forget," she called back from that safe 
place. 



CHAPTER XLVII 

INDIANAPOLIS AND A GLIMPSE OF FAIRYLAND 

Indianapolis, the first city on our way south and 
west, was another like Cleveland, Buffalo, Toledo, only 
without the advantage of a great lake shore which those 
cities possess. It is boasted as one of the principal rail- 
road centers of America, or the world. Good, but what 
of it? Once you have seen the others, it has nothing 
to teach you, and I grow tired of the mere trade 
city devoid of any plan or charm of natural sur- 
roundings. The best of the European cities, or of 
later years, Chicago and New York — Chicago from 
the lake, vast, frowning giant that it is, and New 
York, like a pearly cloud lying beyond her great green 
wet meadows on her sea — ho, Americans, there are 
two pictures! Travel far and wide, see all that the earth 
has to show, view Delhi, Venice, Karnak, the sacred tem- 
ples of the Ganges — there are no such scenes as these. 
Already one beholds them with a kind of awe, conscious 
that they may not be duplicated within a thousand or 
two thousands of years. What could be more astound- 
ing than New York's financial area, or Chicago's com- 
mercial heart! 

All that these minor American cities like Indianapolis 
(and I do not wish to belittle my own state or its capital) 
have to show is a few high buildings in imitation of New 
York or Chicago. If any one of them had any natural 
advantages which would suggest a difference in treat- 
ment, they would not follow it. No, no, let us be like 
Chicago or New York — as like as we may. A few 
artistic low buildings might have more appeal, but that 
would not be like New York. A city may even have 
been laid out perfectly, like Savannah, but do you think 

38s 



386 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

it appreciates its difference sufficiently to wish to remain 
so? Never! Destroy the old, the different, and let's 
be like New York! Every time I see one of these tenth- 
rate imitations, copying these great whales, I want to 
swear. 

Yet, aside from this, Indianapolis was not so bad — 
not unpleasing in places, really. There is a river there, 
the White, with which nothing seems to have been 
done except to build factories on it at one place; but, on 
the other hand, a creek called Broad Ripple — pretty 
name, that — has been walled and parked and made most 
agreeable to look upon. 

One or two streets, it seemed to me, were rather strik- 
ing, lined as they were with pretentious dwellings and 
surrounded by gardens and enclosed in walls — but, oh, 
the little streets, the little streets! 

"Here is where Senator Fairbanks lives." 

"There is where Benjamin Harrison lived before he 
became President." 

Quite so ! Quite so ! But I am thinking of the little 
streets just the same, and the great, inordinate differ- 
ences between things at times. 

Franklin pointed out the First and Second Churches 
of Christ, Scientist — large, artistic, snow-white buildings 
— and a little later, at my request, the home of James 
Whitcomb Riley, laureate of all that perfect company 
of Hoosiers to be found in his sympathetic, if small, vol- 
umes. I revere James Whitcomb with a whole heart. 
There is something so delicate, so tender, so innocent 
not only about his work but about him. His house in 
Lockerbie Street was about as old and homely as it could 
be, as indeed was Lockerbie Street itself — but, shucks, 
who cares. Let the senators and the ex-presidents and 
the beef packers have the big places. What should the 
creator of "Old Doc Sifers" be doing in a great house, 
anyhow? Think of "Little Orphant Annie" being born in 
a mansion ! Never. Only over my dead body. We didn't 
go in. I wanted to, but I felt a little bashful. As I say, 
I had heard that he didn't approve of me. I suggested 



INDIANAPOLIS 387 

that we might come another time, Franklin knowing him 
quite well; but I knew I wouldn't. Yet all my loving 
thoughts went out to him — most sympathetic and pleasing 
wishes for a long life and a happy life. 

The run to Terre Haute was more or less uninterest- 
ing, a flat and lifeless country. We arrived there at 
nearly dusk, entering along a street whose name was 
changed to Wabash shortly after my brother's song be- 
came so popular. Among the first things I saw were 
the buildings and grounds of the Rose Polytechnic Insti- 
tute — an institution which, famous though it is, was only 
of interest to me because the man who founded it, Chaun- 
cey Rose, was once a friend and admirer of my father's. 
At the time my father's mill burned in Sullivan and he 
was made penniless, it was this man who came forward 
and urged him to begin anew, offering to advance him 
the money. But my father was too much of a religious 
and financial and moral coward to risk it. He was doubt- 
ful of success — his nerve had been broken — and he feared 
he might not be able to repay Mr. Rose and so, in event 
of his dying, his soul would be in danger of purgatory. 
Of such is the religious mind. 

But this city of my birth! Now that I was in it, it 
had a strong and mournful fascination for me. Nothing 
that I was doing or being was altered thereby, but 

Suppose, once upon a time in a very strange wonder- 
land, so wonderful that no mere earthborn mortal could 
tell anything about it or make you feel how wonderful 
it was, you had been a very little boy who had gotten 
in there somehow (how, he could not tell) and after a 
very few years had been taken out again, and never after 
that saw It any more. And that during that time many 
strange and curious things happened — things so strange 
and curious that, though you lived many years afterward 
and wandered here and there and to and fro upon the 
earth, still the things that happened in that wonderland, 
the colors of it and the sounds and the voices and the 



388 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

trees, were ever present, like a distant mirage or a back- 
ground of very far off hills, but still present. 

And supposing, let us say, that in this strange land 
there was once a house, or two or three or four or five 
houses, what difference? In one of them (someone later 
said it stood at Twelfth and Walnut in a city called Terre 
Haute, but if you went there now you could not find it) 
there was a cellar, damp and dark. The mother of the 
little boy, to whose skirts he used to cling when any- 
thing troubled or frightened him, once told him that in 
the cellar of this house lived a Cat-man, and that if he 
went near it, let alone down into it, the Cat-man might 
appear and seize him and carry him off. 

The small boy firmly believed in the Cat-man. He lis- 
tened at times and thought he heard him below stairs, 
stirring about among the boxes and barrels there. In 
his mind's eye he saw him, large and dark and toothy, 
a Hottentot's dream of a demon. Finally, after medi- 
tating over it awhile, he got his brother Ed and con- 
ferred with him about it. They decided that Prince, 
the family dog, might help to chase the Cat-man out, 
and so rid them of this evil. Prince, the dog, was no 
coward; a friendly, gay, and yet ferocious animal. He 
was yellow and lithe, a fighter. He plainly believed in 
the Cat-man too (upon request, anyhow), for the cellar 
stairs door being opened and the presence of the Cat- 
man indicated, he sniffed and barked and made such an 
uproar that the mother of the children came out and 
made them go into the yard. And then they heard her 
laughing over the reality of the Cat-man, and exclaiming: 
"Yes, indeed, you'd just better be careful and not go 
down there. He'll catch Prince too!" 

But then there was a certain tree in this same yard 
or garden where once of a spring evening, at dusk, there 
was a strange sound being made, a sawing and rasping 
which in later years the boy was made quite well aware 
was a locust. But just at that time, at that age, in that 
strange land, with the soft, amethystine shadows pouring 
about the world, it seemed as though it must be the Cat- 



INDIANAPOLIS 389 

man come at last out of the cellar and gotten into the 
tree. The child was all alone. His mother was in the 
house. Sitting on the back porch meditating over the 
childish interests of the day, this sound began — and then 
the next minute he was frantically clasping his mother's 
knees, burying his face in her skirts and weeping. "The 
Cat-man I The Cat-man!" (Oh, what a horror I saw- 
ing there in that tree and leering! The child saw his 
eyes!) 

And then the mother said: "No, there isn't any Cat- 
man; it is all a foolish fancy. There, there!" But to 
the child, for a long time, he was real enough, just the 
same. 

And then there was "Old Mr. Watchman," an old man 
with one arm who used to come by the house where the 
small boy lived. He was a watchman somewhere at 
a railroad crossing, a solid, weary, brown faced white 
haired man who in winter wore a heavy great coat, in 
summer a loose, brown jacket, the pockets of which, or 
one pocket, at least, always, and every day, nearly, con- 
tained something which, if the little boy would only hurry 
out each morning or evening and climb on the fence and 
reach for, he might have. 

"Mr. Watchman! Mr. Watchman!" I can hear him 
crying yet. 

And somehow I seem to see a kindly gleam in the 
old blue eyes, and a smile on the brown face, and a big, 
rough hand going over a very little head. 

"Yes, there we have it. That's the nice boy." 

And then someone would call from the house or the 
gate, a father or mother, perhaps, "And now what do we 
say?" 

"Oh, thank you, Mr. Watchman. Thank you." 

And then the old watchman would go trudging on- 
ward with his bucket on his arm, and the boy would 
munch his candy or his peanuts or his apple and forget 
how kind and strange old Mr. Watchman really was — 
and how pathetic. 

Then one day, some time later, after a considerable 



390 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

absence or silence on the part of Mr. Watchman, the 
small boy was taken to see him where he was lying very 
still in a very humble little cottage, in a black box, with 
nickels on his eyes — and the little boy wanted to take 
the nickels, too. 

Don't you suppose Mr. Watchman must have smiled, 
wherever he was, if he could? 

And then one last picture, though I might recall a 
hundred from fairyland — a thousand. It is a hot day 
and a house with closed shutters and drawn blinds, and 
in the center of a cool, still room a woman sitting in 
a loose negligee, and at her feet the child playing with 
the loose, worn slippers on her feet. The boy is very 
interested in his mother, he loves her, and for that rea- 
son, to his small mind her feet and her worn slippers 
are very dear to him. 

"See poor mama's shoes. Aren't you sorry for her? 
Think how she has to wear such poor torn shoes and 
how hard she has to work." 

"Yes, poor shoes. Poor mummy." 

"When you grow up are you going to get work and 
buy poor mother a good pair — like a nice, strong, big 
man?" 

"Yes, work. Yes, I get mummy shoes." 

Suddenly, something in the mother's voice is too mov- 
ing. Some mystic thread binding the two operates to 
convey and enlarge a mood. The child bursts into tears 
over the old pattens. He is gathered up close, wet eyed, 
and the mother cries too. 

At the same time, this city of my birth was identified 
with so much struggle on the part of my parents, so 
many dramas and tragedies in connection with relatives 
and friends, that by now it seemed quite wonderful as 
the scene of almost an epic. I might try to indicate the 
exact character of it as it related to me; but instead, here 
at any rate, I will only say that from the time the mill 
burned until after various futile attempts to right our- 
selves, at Sullivan and Evansville, we finally left this part 



llilK,M(^ \\.,,ilf 




rM>ja<aggiffi^:.uiL- 



THE STANDARD BRIDGE OF FIFTY YEARS AGO 
Reelsville. Indiana 



INDIANAPOLIS 391 

of the country for good, it was one unbroken stretch of 
privation and misery. 

In that brilliant and yet defective story entitled "The 
Turn of the Balance," by Brand Whitlock, there is nar- 
rated the career of an unfortunate German family which 
might almost have been ours, only in order to deal with 
so many children as there were in our family, the causes 
would necessarily have been further enlarged, or the data 
greatly condensed. In addition, there was no such com- 
plete collapse involved. The more I think of my father, 
and the more I consider the religious and fearful type 
of mind in general, the more certain I am that mere 
breeding of lives (raising a family without the skill 
to engineer it through the difficulties of infancy and 
youth) is one of the most pathetic, albeit humanly essen- 
tial, blunders which the world contains. Yet, and per- 
haps wisely so, it is repeated over and over, age in and 
age out, ad infinitum. Governments love large families. 
These provide population, recruit large armies and 
navies, add the necessary percentage to the growth of 
cities and countries, fill the gaping maws of the factories. 
The churches love large families, for they bring recruits 
to them and give proof of that solid morality which 
requires that sex shall result in more children and that 
these shall be adequately raised in the fear of God, if not 
in the comforts of life. Manufacturers and strong men 
generally like large families. Where else would they 
get the tools wherewith they work — the cheap labor — 
and the amazing contrasts between poverty and wealth, 
the contemplation of which gives them such a satisfac- 
tion in their own worth and force? Nature loves large 
families, apparently, because she makes so many of them. 
Vice must love large families because from them, and out 
of their needs and miseries, it is principally recruited. 
Death must love them too, for it gathers its principal toll 
there. But if an ordinary working man, or one with- 
out a serene and forceful capacity for toil and provision, 
could see the ramifications and miseries of birth in pov- 
erty, he would not reproduce himself so freely. 



392 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

My father was of that happy religionistic frame of 
mind which sees in a large family — a very large family 
indeed, for there were thirteen of us — the be all and 
the end all of human existence. For him work, the rear- 
ing of children, the obligations of his religion and the 
liberal fulfilling of all his social obligations, imaginary 
or otherwise, were all that life contained. He took life 
to be not what it is, but what it is said to be, or written 
to be, by others. The Catholic volumes containing that 
inane balderdash, "The Lives of the Saints," were truer 
than any true history — if there is such a thing — to him. 
He believed them absolutely. The pope was infallible. 
If you didn't go to confession and communion at least 
once a year, you were eternally damned. I recall his 
once telling me that, if a small bird were to come only 
once every million or trillion years and rub its bill on a 
rock as big as the earth, the rock would be worn out 
before a man would see the end of hell — eternal, fiery 
torture — once he was in it. And then he would not see 
the end of it, but merely the beginning, as it were. I 
recall invoking his rather heated contempt, on this occa- 
sion, by asking (or suggesting, I forget which) whether 
God might not change His mind about hell and let some- 
body out after a time. It seemed to him that I was 
evidently blasphemously bumptious, and that I was 
trifling with sacred things 1 

Unfortunately for him, though really not for us, I 
think, in the long run, his children were differently 
minded. Owing to an arrogant and domineering disposi- 
tion, he insisted on the first ten, or first five, let us say, 
being educated in the then Catholic parochial schools, 
where they learned nothing at all. Just before his fail- 
ure, or the fire which ruined him, he gave the ground on 
which the church and school of St. Joseph in Terre Haute 
now stand, to the rector of that parish. Priests and 
bishops had the run of our home in the days when we 
were prosperous. After that they did not come so much, 
except to demand to know this, that, or the other, or to 
complain of our conduct. After my father's failure, and 



INDIANAPOLIS 393 

because he did not feel himself courageous enough to ven- 
ture on a new enterprise with the aid of the wealthy 
Mr. Rose, the then suflSciently grown children were sup- 
posed to go to work, the girls as housemaids, if neces- 
sary (for their education having been nothing, they had 
no skill for anything else), the boys as "hands" in the 
mill, the one thing my father knew most about, if they 
would (which they wouldn't), in order to learn a trade 
of some kind. 

Instead there was a revolt. They broke out into the 
world to suit themselves. To save expenses, my mother 
had taken the three youngest, Ed, Clair (or Tillie, as we 
always called her) and myself, first to a friend at Vin- 
cennes, Indiana, for a few weeks' stay, then to Sullivan, 
where we remained two years trying to maintain our- 
selves as best we could; thence to Evansville, where, my 
brother Paul having established himself rather comfort- 
ably, we remained two more; thence to Warsaw (via 
Chicago), where we remained three years and where I 
received my only intelligent schooling; thence out into 
the world, for the three youngest of us, at least, to be- 
come, as chance might have it, such failures or successes 
as may be. The others, too, after one type of career and 
another, did well enough. Paul, for one, managed to 
get a national reputation as a song writer and to live 
in comfort and even luxury. All of the girls, after vary- 
ing years and degrees of success or failure, married 
and settled down to the average troubles of the married. 
One of these, the third from the eldest, was killed by a 
train in Chicago in her thirtysecond year, in 1897. One 
brother — the youngest (two years younger than myself) 
— became an actor. The brother next older than myself 
became an electrician. The fourth eldest, and one of 
the most interesting of all, as it seemed to me, a railroad 
man by profession, finally died of drunkenness (alcohol- 
ism is a nicer word) in a South Clark Street dive 
in Chicago, about 1905. So it goes. But all of them, 
in their way, were fairly intelligent people, no worse 
and no better than the average. 



394 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

I can see the average smug, conventional soul, if one 
such should ever chance to get so deep into this book, 
chilling and sniffing over this frank confession. My 
answer is that, if he knows as much about life as I do 
or has the courage to say what he really knows or be- 
lieves, he would neither be chilling or sniffing. If any 
individual in this dusty world has anything to be ashamed 
of, it is certainly not the accidents, ignorances and stark 
vicissitudes with which we are all more or less confronted. 
These last may be pathetic, but they have the merit nearly 
always of great and even beautiful drama; whereas, the 
treacheries, shams and poltrooneries which make for the 
creation and sustenance of the sniffy and the smug are 
really the things to be ashamed of. I can only think of 
Christ's scathing denunciation of scribes, hypocrites and 
pharisees and his reference to the mote and the beam. 

In Terre Haute, not elsewhere, we moved so often for 
want of means to pay our rent, or to obtain cheaper 
places, that it is almost painful to think of it in retro- 
spect, though at the time I was too young to know any- 
thing much about it. There was so much sickness in the 
family, and at this time a certain amount of ill feeling 
between my mother and father. Several of the girls 
ran away and (in seeming, only in so far as the beliefs of 
my father were concerned) went to the bad. They did 
not go to the bad actually as time subsequently proved, 
though I might disagree with many as to what is bad 
and what good. One of the boys, Paul, got into jail, 
quite innocently it seems, and was turned out by my 
father, only to be received back again and subsequently 
to become his almost sole source of support in his later 
years. There was gloom, no work, often no bread, or 
scarcely any, in the house. Strange shifts were re- 
sorted to. My mother, and my father, for that matter, 
worked and slaved. Both, but she in particular, I am 
sure, because of her ambitious, romantic temperament, 
suffered the tortures of the damned. 



INDIANAPOLIS 395 

Alas, she never lived to see our better days! My 
father did. 

But Terre Haute! Terre Haute! 

Here I was entering it now for the first time since I had 
left it, between seven and eight years of age, exactly 
thirtyseven years before. 



CHAPTER XLVIII 

THE SPIRIT OF TERRE HAUTE 

Aside from these perfervid memories in connection 
with it, Terre Haute was not so different from Fort 
Wayne, or even Sandusky, minus the lake. It had the 
usual main street (Wabash Avenue) lighted with many 
lamps, the city hall, postoffice, principal hotel, and the- 
atres; but I will say this for it, it seemed more vital than 
most of these other places — more like Wilkes-Barre or 
Binghamton. I asked Franklin about this, and he said 
that he felt it had exceptional vitality — something dif- 
ferent. 

"I can't tell you what it is," he said. "I have heard 
boys up in Carmel and Indianapolis who have been down 
here say it was a 'hot town.' I can understand now some- 
thing of what they mean. It has a young, hopeful, seek- 
ing atmosphere. I like it." 

That was just how it seemed to me, after he had ex- 
pressed it — "a seeking atmosphere." Although it 
claimed a population of only sixtyseven thousand or 
thereabouts, it had the tang and go of a much larger 
place. That something which I have always noticed about 
American cities and missed abroad, more or less, unless 
it was in Rome, Paris and Berlin, was here, — a crude, 
sweet illusion about the importance of all things material. 
What lesser god, under the high arch of life itself, weaves 
this spell? What is it man is seeking, that he is so hun- 
gry, so lustful? These little girls and boys, these half- 
developed men and women with their white faces and 
their seeking hands — oh, the pathos of it all! 

Before going to an hotel for dinner, we drove across 
the Wabash River on a long, partially covered bridge, 
to what I thought was the Illinois side, but which was 

396 



THE SPIRIT OF TERRE HAUTE 397 

only a trans-Wabash extension of Vigo County. Coming 
back, the night view of the city was so fine — tall chimneys 
and factories darkling along the upper and lower shores 
with a glow of gold in the center — that Franklin insisted 
he must make a memory note, something to help him do 
a better thing later, so we paused on the bridge while he 
sketched the lovely scene by arc light. Then we came 
back to the Terre Haute House (or the Terrible Hot 
House, as my brother Paul used to call it), where, for 
sentimental reasons, I preferred to stop, though there 
was a newer and better hotel, the Deming, farther up the 
street. For here, once upon a time, my brother Rome, 
at that time a seeking boy like any of those we now saw 
pouring up and down this well lighted street — (up and 
down, up and down, day after day, like those poor moths 
we see about the lamp) — was in the habit of coming, 
and, as my father described it, in his best suit of clothes 
and his best shoes, a toothpick in his mouth, standing in 
or near the doorway of the hotel, to give the impression 
that he had just dined there. 

"Loafers! Idle, good-for-nothings!" I can hear my 
father exclaiming even now. 

Yet he was not a loafer by any means — just a hungry, 
thirsty, curious boy, all too eager for the little life his 
limited experience or skill would buy. He was the one 
who finally took to drink and disappeared into the mael- 
strom of death — or is it life? 

And here, once in her worst days, my mother came to 
look for work, and got It. In later years, Paul came here 
to be tendered a banquet by friends in the city because of 
his song about this river — "a tribute to the state" — as one 
admirer expressed it. 

Not that I cared at all, really. I didn't. It wouldn't 
have made any vast difference if we had gone to the 
other hotel — only it would have, too! We arranged 
our belongings in our adjoining rooms and then went out 
for a stroll, examining the central court and the low halls 
and the lobby as we passed. I thought of my mother — 
and Rome, outside on the corner — and Paul at his senti- 



398 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

mental banquet, and then — well, then I felt "very sad 
like," as we would say in Indiana. 

Up the street from our hotel was the Deming, the 
principal hotel of this city — "our largest," as the average 
American would say — just like every other hotel in Amer- 
ica which at this day and date aspires to be "our largest" 
and to provide the native with that something which he 
thinks is at once recherche (curse that word!) and 
"grand," or "gorgeous." Thus, there must be (i) a 
group of flamboyantly uniformed hall boys and porters, 
all braids and buttons, whose chief, if not sole duty, is 
to exact gratuities from the unwilling and yet ecstatic 
visitor; (2) an hotel clerk, or three or five, who will make 
him feel that he is a mere upstart or intruder, and that 
it is only by the generosity of a watchful and yet kindly 
management (which does not really approve of him) 
that he is permitted to enter at all; (3) maids, mani- 
curesses, and newsstand salesladies, who are present solely 
to make him understand what he has missed by marrying, 
and how little his wife knows about dress, or taste, or 
life; (4) a lobby, lounging room, shoeshining parlor and 
barber shop, done entirely in imitation onyx; (5) a din- 
ingroom in imitation of one of the principal chambers of 
the Palace of Vairsigh; (6) a grill or men's restaurant, 
made to look exactly like a western architect's dream of 
a Burgundian baronial hall; (7) a head waiter who can 
be friends only with millionaires or their equivalent, the 
local richest men; (9) a taxi service which can charge 
as much if not more than any other city's. This last is 
absolutely indispensable, as showing the importance of 
the city. But nevertheless we went here, after prowling 
about the city for some time, to enjoy a later supper — or 
rather to see if there were any people here who were 
worth observing at this favorite American midnight 
pastime. There were — in their way. 

Those that we saw here — in the grill — suggested at 
once the aspirations and the limitations of a city of this 
size and its commercial and social predilections. For 
here, between eleven and one, came many that might be 






V- 







THE SPIRIT OF TERRE HAUTE 399 

called "our largest" or "our most successful" men, of a 
solid, resonant, generative materiality. The flare of the 
cloth of their suits I The blaze of their skins and eyes! 
The hardy, animal implication of their eyes! 

And the women — elder and younger ! wives and 
daughters of those men who have only recently begun to 
make money in easy sums and so to enjoy life. They 
reminded me of those I had seen in the Kittatinny at 
Delaware Water Gap. What breweries, what wagon 
works, what automobile factories may not have been 
grinding day and night for their benefit! Here they 
were, most circumspect, most quiescent, a gaudy and yet 
reserved company; but as I looked at some of them 
I could not help thinking of some of the places I had 
seen abroad, more especially the Abbaye Theleme in 
Paris and the Carlton at Monte Carlo, where, freed from 
the prying eyes of Terre Haute or Columbus or Peoria 
in summer or winter, the eager American abroad is free 
to dance and carouse and make up, in part, for some 
of the shortcomings of his or her situation here. Yes, 
you may see them there, the sons and daughters of these 
factory builders and paint manufacturers, a feverish 
hunger in their faces, making up for what Indiana or 
Illinois or Iowa would never permit them to do. Blood 
will tell, and the brooding earth forces weaving these 
things must have tremendous moods and yearnings which 
require expression thus. 

But what interested me more, and this was sad too, 
were the tribes and shoals of the incomplete, the botched, 
the semi-articulate, all hungry and helpless, who never get 
to come to a place like this at all — who yearn for a taste 
of this show and flare and never attain to the least taste 
of it. Somehow the streets of this city suggested them 
to me. I know the moralists will not agree with me as to 
this, but what of it? Haven't you seen them of a 
morning — very early morning and late evening, in their 
shabby skirts, their shapeless waists, their messes of hats, 
their worn shoes, trudging to and from one wretched 
task and another, through the great streets and the splen- 



400 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

did places? And are you content always to dismiss them 
as just dull, or weak, or incapable of understanding those 
finer things which you think you understand so well? Are 
there not some possibly who are different? Oh, you brash 
thinkers who dismiss them all so lightly — Not so fast, 
pray! Do not lean too heavily upon the significance of 
your present state. Tonight, tomorrow, may begin the 
fierce blasts that will sweep away the last vestige of 
what was strength, or pride, or beauty, or power, 
or understanding. Even now the winds of disaster may 
be whining under your door. A good body is something, 
a brain is more. Taste, beauty, these are great gifts, 
not achievements. And that which gave so generously 
can as certainly take away again. When you see them 
trudging so hopelessly, so painfully, their eyes riveted by 
the flashing wonders of life, let it be not all contempt 
or all pride with which you view them. Hold to your 
strength if you will, or your subtlety; but this night, in 
your heart, on your knees, make obeisance. These are 
tremendous forces among which we walk. With their 
powers and their results we may have neither part nor 
lot. What, slave, do you strut and stare and make light 
of your fellow? This night may you be with them, 
not in paradise, but in eternal nothingness — voiceless, 
dreamless, not even so much as a memory of anything 
elsewhere. Nothing! 
Even so ! Even so I 



CHAPTER XLIX 

TERRE HAUTE AFTER THIRTYSEVEN YEARS 

For good, bad, or indifferent, whether it had been 
painful or pleasant, the youth time that I had spent in 
Terre Haute had gone and would never come back again. 
My mother, as I remembered her then — and when is a 
mother more of a mother than in one's babyhood? — was 
by now merely a collection of incidents and pains and 
sweetnesses lingering in a few minds! And my father, 
earnest, serious-minded German, striving to do the best 
he knew, was gone also — all of thirteen years. Those 
brothers and sisters whose ambitions were then so keen, 
whose blood moods were so high, were now tamed and 
sober, scattered over all the eastern portion of America. 
And here was I walking about, not knowing a single soul 
here really, intent upon finding one man perhaps who had 
known my father and had been kind to him; for the rest, 
looking up the houses in which we had lived, the first 
school which I had ever attended, the first church, and 
thinking over all the ills we had endured rather than the 
pleasures we had enjoyed (for of the latter I could 
scarcely recall any), was all with which I had to employ 
myself. 

In the first place, the night before coming in, because it 
was nearly dark and because neither Franklin nor I cared 
to spend any more time in this southern extension than 
we could help, I wanted to find and look at as many of 
the old places as was possible in the summer twilight, 
for more than look at them once I could scarcely, or at 
least, would not care to do. It was not a difficult matter. 
At the time we lived there, the city was much smaller, 
scarcely more than one-third its present size, and the 
places which then seemed remote from the business heart 

401 



402 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

were now a five-minute walk, if so much. I could see, 
in coming in, that to get to Ninth and Chestnut, where 
I was born, I would have to go almost into the business 
section, or nearly so. Again, the house at Twelfth and 
Walnut, where the first few years of my life were spent — > 
say from one to five — was first on our route in, and it 
was best to have Bert turn in there, for the street label- 
ings were all very plain and it was easy to find our way. 
It was very evident that Terre Haute was another manu- 
facturing city, and a prosperous one, for smoke filled the 
air and there was a somewhat inspiriting display of chim- 
neys and manufacturing buildings in one direction and 
another. The sound of engine bells and factory whistles 
at six o'clock seemed to indicate a cheerful prosperity not 
always present in larger and seemingly more successful 
cities. Franklin, as I have said, noted a temper or flare' 
of youth and hope about the town, for he spoke of it. 

"I like this place. It is interesting," he said. "I had 
no idea Terre Haute was so fine as this." 

As for me, my mind was recurring to old scenes and 
old miseries, commingled with a child's sensations. Once 
in this town, in company with Ed and Al, I picked coal 
off the tracks because we had no coal at home. Some- 
where here Ed and I, going for a sack of cornmeal, lost 
the fifty cents with which to buy it, and it was our last 
fifty cents. In a small house in Thirteenth Street, as I 
have elsewhere indicated, the three youngest of us were 
sick, while my father was out of work, and my mother 
was compelled to take in washing. In some other house 
here — Seventh and Chestnut, I believe — there was a 
swing in a basement where I used to swing all alone by 
the hour, enjoying my own moods even at that time. 
From a small brick house in Fourteenth Street, the last 
I ever knew of Terre Haute, I carried my father's dinner 
to him in a pail at a woolen mill, of which he was fore- 
man or manager or something. He was never exactly a 
day laborer for anyone. I remember a "carder" and a 
"fuller" and a "blower" and a "spinning jenny" and his 
explaining their functions to me. Somewhere in this town 



AFTER THIRTYSEVEN YEARS 403 

was the remainder of St. Joseph's School, or its site, at 
least, where at five years of age I was taken to learn my 
A B C's, and where a nun in a great flaring white bonnet 
and a black habit, with a rattling string of great beads, 
pointed at a blackboard with a stick and asked us what 
certain symbols stood for. I recall even now, very faintly, 
it is true, having trouble remembering what the sounds 
of certain letters were. 

I remember the church attached to this school, and a 
bell in a tower that used to get turned over and wouldn't 
ring until some one of us boys' climbed up and turned it 
back — a great treat. I refiiember boating on a small, 
muddy pool, on boards, and getting my feet very wet, and 
almost falling in, and a Serious sore throat afterwards. I 
remember a band — the first I ever heard — (Kleinbind's 
Terre Haute Ringold Band as my father afterwards ex- 
plained was its official title) — marching up the street, the 
men wearing red jackets with white shoulder straps and 
tall black Russian shakos. They frightened me, and I 
cried. I remember once being on the Wabash River with 
my brother Rome in a small boat — the yellow water 
seemed more of a wonder and terror to me then than it 
does now — and of his rocking the boat and of my scream- 
ing, and of his wanting to whip me — a brotherly bit of 
tenderness, quite natural, don't you think? I remember, 
at Twelfth and Walnut, a great summer rainstorm, when 
I was very young, and my mother undressing me and tell- 
ing me to run out naked in the great splattering drops 
making bubbles everywhere — an adventure which seemed 
very splendid and quite to my taste. I remember my 
brothers Paul and Rome as grownups — men really — 
when they were only boys, and of my elder sisters — girls 
of thirteen, fifteen, seventeen, seeming like great strong 
women. 

Life was a strange, colorful, kaleidoscopic welter then. 
It has remained so ever since. 

Here I was now, and it was evening. As we turned 
into Walnut Street at Twelfth I recognized one of the 
houses by pictures in the family and by faint memories 



404 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

and we stopped to give Franklin time to sketch it. It 
was a smoky, somewhat treeless neighborhood, with 
a number of children playing about, and long rows 
of one-story workingmen's cottages receding in every 
direction. Once it had a large yard with a garden at 
the back, apple, pear and cherry trees along the fence, 
a small barn or cow shed, and rows of gooseberry and 
currant bushes bordering several sides. Now all that 
was gone, of course. The house had been moved over to 
the very corner. Small houses, all smoky, had been 
crowded in on either hand so tightly that there were 
scarcely sidewalks between them. I asked a little girl 
who came running over as the car stopped and Franklin 
began sketching, "Who lives over there?" 

"Kifer," she replied. 

"What does he do?" 

"He works. They keep boarders. What are you 
making?" 

"A picture." 

"Of that house?" 

"Yes." 

"What for?" 

"Well, I used to live there and I've come back all the 
way from New York to see it." 

"Oh!" And with that she climbed up on the running 
board to look on, but Franklin shooed her off. 

"You mustn't shake the car," he said. 

She got down, but only to confer with six or seven 
other children who had gathered by now, and all of whom 
had to be enlightened. They ran back for a moment or 
two to inform inquisitive parents, but soon returned, in- 
creased in number. They stood in a group and surveyed 
the house as though they had never seen it before. Ob- 
viously, it had taken on a little luster in their eyes. They 
climbed up on the running boards and shook the car until 
Franklin was compelled to order them down again, 
though it was plain that he was not anxious so to do. 
Bats were circling in the air overhead — those fine, rico- 
cheting winged mice. There were mosquitoes about, an- 



ir .'^m^^-.-ra-i 




TERRE HAUTE FROM WEST OF THE WABASH 



AFTER THIRTYSEVEN YEARS 405 

noying numbers of them — horrible clouds, in fact, which 
caused me to wonder how people endured living in the 
neighborhood. People walked by on their way home 
from work, or going out somewhere, young men in the 
most dandified and conspicuous garbs, and on porches and 
front steps were their fathers in shirt sleeves, and women 
in calico dresses, reading the evening paper. I studied 
each detail of the house, getting out and looking at it | 
from one side and another, but I could get no least touch 
of the earlier atmosphere, and I did not want to go in. 
Interiorly it held no interest for me. I could not remem- 
ber how it looked on the inside anyhow. 

After leaving this house, I decided to look up Ninth 
and Chestnut, where I was born, but not knowing the 
exact corner (no one in our family having been able to 
tell me) I gave it up, only to notice that at that moment 
I was passing the corner. I looked. There were small 
houses on every hand. Which one was ours, or had been ? 
Or was it there at all any more? Useless speculation. I 
did not even trouble to stop the car. 

But from here I directed the car to Eighth and Chest- 
nut, a corner at which, in an old red brick house still 
standing, my mother, as someone had informed me, had 
once essayed keeping borders. I was so young at the 
time I could scarcely remember — say six or seven. All 
I could recall of it was that here once was a little girl in 
blue velvet, with yellow hair, the daughter of some woman 
of comparative (it is a guess) means, who was stopping 
with us, and who, because of her blue velvet dress and 
her airs, seemed most amazing to me, a creature out of 
the skies. I remember standing at the head of the stairs 
and looking into her room — or her mother's, and seeing 
a dresser loaded with silver bits, and marveling at the 
excellence of such a life. Just that, and nothing more, 
out of a whole period of months. Now I could only 
recall that the house was of brick, that it had a lawn and 
trees, a basement with a brick floor, and a sense of aban- 
donment and departed merit. Finding it at this late date 
was not likely, but we ran the car around there and 



4o6 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

stopped and looked. There was a brick house there, old 
but improved. Was it the same? Who can tell, or what 
matter, really? The difference was to me. 

We think of life as a definite, enduring thing, some of 
us; but what a thin shadow, or nothingness, it must be, 
really, when the past and your youth and all connected 
with it goes glimmering thus like smoke. I always think 
of that passage in Job (XIV: 1-2) "Man that is born of a 
woman is of few days, and full of trouble. He cometh 
forth like a flower and is cut down; he fleeth also as a 
shadow, and continueth not." When I think of that, and 
how ideas and notions and fames and blames go glimmer- 
ing, I often ask myself what is it all about, anyhow, and 
what are we here for, and why should anyone worry 
whether they are low or high, or moral or immoral. 
What difference does it really make? And to whom? 
Who actually cares, in the long run, whether you are 
good, bad or indifferent? There is much talk and much 
strutting to and fro and much concealment of our past 
ills and shames, and much parading of our present lux- 
uries and well beings. But, my good friends, the wise 
know better. You cannot talk to a man or woman of 
capacity or insight or experience of any of these sharp 
distinctions. To them they do not exist. We are all low 
or high according to our dynamic energy to get and keep 
fame, money, notoriety, information, skill — no more. As 
for the virtuous, and those supposedly lacking in virtue — 
the honest and those who are dishonest — kind heaven, we 
haven't the first inklings of necessary data wherewith to 
begin even to formulate a theory of difference! We do 
not know, and I had almost said we cannot know, though 
I am not one to be cocksure of anything — not even of the 
impossibility of perfection. 

Allons ! Then we moved the car to Seventh and Chest- 
nut Streets, where had stood another house near a lumber 
yard. In this house was the swing in the basement where 
I used to swing, the sunlight pouring through a low cellar 
window, such days as I chose to play there. Outside was 
a great yard or garden with trees, and close at hand 



AFTER THIRTYSEVEN YEARS 407 

a large lumber yard — it seemed immense to me at the 
time — pleasingly filled with odoriferous woods, and offer- 
ing a great opportunity for climbing, playing hide and 
seek, running and jumping from pile to pile, and avoiding 
the watchman who wanted to catch us and give us a good 
beating for coming into it at all. 

And beyond that was a train yard full of engines and 
cars and old brolien down cabooses and a repair shop. 
When I was most adventurous I used to wander even 
beyond the lumber yard (there was a spur track, going 
out into this greater world), staring at all I saw, and 
risking no doubt my young life more than once. At one 
time I fell off a car on which I had adventurously 
climbed and bruised my hand quite seriously. At an- 
other time I climbed up into a worn out and discarded 
engine, and examined all the machinery with the utmost 
curiosity. It all seemed so amazing to me. Engineers, 
firemen, brakemen, yard men — how astonishing they all 
seemed — the whole clangorous, jangling compact called 
life. 

But this house was now a mere myth or rumor — some- 
thing that may never have existed at all — so unreal are 
our realities. It had gone glimmering. There was no 
house here anything like that which I had in mind. There 
was a railroad yard, quite a large one, probably greatly 
enlarged since my day. There was a lumber yard ad- 
joining it, very prosperous looking, and enclosed by a 
high board fence, well painted, and a long, old, low 
white house with green shutters. We stopped the car 
here and I meditated on my mother and sisters and on 
some laughing school teachers who took meals with us 
here at this time. Then we moved on. I was glad to go. 
I was getting depressed. 

The last place we tried for was that much mentioned 
in Thirteenth Street, Thirteenth between Walnut and 
Chestnut, as some one of my relatives had said, but I 
could not find it. When we reached the immediate vicin- 
ity we found a hundred such houses — I had almost said a 
thousand — and it was a poor, sorrowful street, the homes 



4o8 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

of the most deficient or oppressed or defeated. I wanted 
to hurry on, and did so, but musingly and romantically, 
in passing, I picked out one which stood next to an alley 
— an old, small, black, faded house, and said to myself, 
that must be ours. But was it? Because of uncertainty 
my heart could not go out to it. It went out only to that 
other house back in the clouds of memory, where my 
mother and my sisters and brothers were all assembled. 

And this street — yes, my heart went out to it — oh, very 
much. I felt as though I would be willing to trade places 
with and take up the burden of the least efficient and 
most depressed of all of those assembled here, in memory 
of — in memory of 



CHAPTER L 

A LUSH, EGYPTIAN LAND 

The next morning, after purchasing our customary 
picture cards, we were about to achieve an early start 
when I suddenly remembered that I had not tried to find 
the one man I really wanted to see — a man for whom my 
father had worked in years gone by, the son of a mill 
owner who after his father's death with a brother had 
inherited this mill and employed my father to run it. 
Although he was very much younger than my father at 
that time, there had always been a bond of sympathy 
and understanding between them. But even in my father's 
lifetime the woolen industry in this region had fallen on 
hard lines — the East and some patents on machinery held 
by Massachusetts manufacturers crowding these western- 
ers to the wall — so that this boy and his brother, who had 
been such good friends to my father, had been compelled 
to abandon their woolen properties entirely and Adam 
Shattuck had gone into the electric lighting business, and 
had helped, I understand, to organize the local electric 
light plant here and for a while anyhow was its first vice- 
president and treasurer. After that I heard nothing 
more. 

I had never seen him, but as is always the case with 
someone commercially connected with a family — a suc- 
cessful and so helpful a personality — I had heard a great 
deal about him. Indeed, in our worst days here, the 
Shattuck family had represented to me the height of all 
that was important and durable, and to such an extent 
that even now, and after all these years, I hesitated 
whether to inflict myself on him, even for so laudable a 
purpose as inquiring the exact site of the old mill or 
whether he recalled where my father first lived, on mov- 

409 



4IO A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

Ing to Terre Haute from Sullivan, and which was the 
house where I was born. Nevertheless, I looked him up 
in the city directory and could find only one Adam B. 
Shattuck, "hay, grain, and feed, 230 South Fourth 
Street," a region and a business which did not seem likely 
to contain so important a person. Nevertheless, because 
I was anxious to see the old mill which my father had 
managed under his ownership (I knew it stood some- 
where down near the river's edge), I ventured to go to 
this address, to find perchance if he could tell me where 
the true Adam B. Shattuck was to be found. 

And on the way, because it was only a few blocks at 
most in any direction, I decided to look up the old St. 
Joseph's Church and school which I had attended as a 
child, my first school, to see if possibly I could recognize 
anything in connection with that. A picture postcard 
which I had found showed a quite imposing church on the 
site my father had given, but no school. 

Imagine my surprise on reaching it to be able to recog- 
nize in a rear building to which a new front had, in years 
gone by, been added, the exact small, square red brick 
building in which I had first been drilled in my A B C's. 
Owing to a high brick wall and the presence of an en- 
croaching building it was barely visible any longer from 
the street, but stripped of these later accretions I could 
see exactly how it looked — and remember it ! As I gazed, 
the yard, the pond, the old church, the surrounding neigh- 
borhood, all came back to me. I saw it quite clearly. As 
at Warsaw, Indiana, I now suffered a slight upheaval in 
my vitals. A kind of nostalgia set in. The very earth 
seemed slipping out from under my feet. I looked 
through the small paned windows into one of the old 
rooms and then, because it was exactly the same, I wanted 
to get away. I went round by the church side and seeing 
a funeral train in front walked through the door into this 
newer building. Before the altar rail, surrounded by tall 
candles, lay a coffin. And I said to myself: "Yes, it is 
symbolic. Death and change have taken much, so far. 
They will soon take all." 



A LUSH, EGYPTIAN LAND 41 1; 

Then I climbed back into the car. 

It was only a few blocks to the hay, grain and feed 
emporium of this bogus Adam Shattuck, and when I saw 
it, a low, drab, one story brick building, in a very dilapi- 
dated condition, I felt more convinced than ever that this 
man could have nothing to do with my father's quondam 
employer. I went through the dusty, hay strewn door 
and at a small, tall, dusty and worn clerical desk saw an 
old man in a threadbare grey alpaca coat, making some 
entries in a cheap, reddish paper backed cashbook. There 
was a scale behind him. The shadowy, windowless walls 
in the rear and to the sides were lined with bins, contain- 
ing sacks of oats and bran, bales of hay and other feed. 
Just as I entered a boy from the vicinity followed me, 
pushing a small truck, and laid a yellow slip on the desk. 

"He says to make it four half sacks of bran." 

"Can you tell me where I will find a Mr. Adam B. 
Shattuck, who used to own the Wabash Woolen Mills 
here?" I inquired. 

"I'm the man — Adam B. Shattuck. Just excuse me a 
minute, will you, while I wait on this boy." 

I stared at him in rude astonishment, for he seemed so 
worn, so physically concluded. His face was seamed and 
sunken, his eyes deep tired, his hands wrinkled. 

"You're Mr. Shattuck, are you? Well, I'm the son of 
Paul Dreiser, who used to work for you. You don't 
remember me, of course — I was too young " 

"This isn't by any chance Theodore, is it?" he com- 
mented, his eyes brightening slightly with recognition. 

"Yes, that's me," I said. 

"Your brother Paul," he said, "when he was out here a 
few years ago, was telling me about you. You write, I 
believe " 

"Yes." 

"Well, of course, I've never known of you except in- 
directly, but — how long are you going to be in town?" 

"Only this morning," I replied. "I'm just passing 
through. This isn't my car. I'm traveling in it with a 
friend. I'm visiting all the old places just for the fun of 



412 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

It. I was just coming to you to ask if you could tell me 
where the old mill stood — whether it's still standing." 

"Right at the foot of the street here," he commented 
very cheerfully, at the same time bustling about and get- 
ting out the half sacks of bran and other things. "It's 
just as it was in your father's day, only it is a wagon com- 
pany now. All the woolen mills in this section died out 
long ago. Your father foresaw that. He told me they 
would. I went into the electric lighting business after- 
ward, but they crowded me out of it — consolidation and 
all that. Then I got into this business. It isn't much 
but it's a living. One seventyfive," he said to the boy, 
who put the money on the desk and went out. 

"Yes, indeed, I knew your father. He was a fine man. 
He worked for us off and on for pretty near fifteen year, 
after his own mill went up. This was no country for 
woolen manufacture, though. We couldn't compete with 
the East. Why, I read here not long ago that two hun- 
dred mills in Indiana, Ohio and Illinois had closed up in 
twenty years — two hundred! Well, that's all over. So 
you're Theodore ! You couldn't stay and have lunch with 
me, could you?" 

"Thank you, I couldn't possibly," I replied. "I'm only 
a guest in this car and I can't detain them too long. I 
did want to see you, though, and so I came." 

"That's right; that's right," he said. "It's good of 
you. Times have changed with me some, but then, I've 
lived a long time. I've a son in New York. He's with 
. . . (he mentioned a large and successful company). 
You ought to call on him some time. He'd be glad to 
see you, I'm sure." 

He rambled on about one thing and another and fol- 
lowed me ... to the door. 

"You couldn't tell me, by any chance, where the first 
house my father ever occupied in Terre Haute stands?" 
I said idly. 

"Yes, I can. It's right around here in Second Street, 
one block south, next to a grocery store. You can't miss 
it. It's a two story brick now, but they added a story a 



A LUSH, EGYPTIAN LAND 413 

long time ago. It was a one story house in his time, but 
then It had a big yard and lots of trees. I remember it 
well. I used to go there occasionally to see him. . . . 
Right down there at the foot of the street," he called 
after me. 

I climbed into the car and down we went to the old 
mill to stare at that, now whirring with new sounds and 
looking fairly brisk and prosperous; then back to the old 
brick house, looking so old and so commonplace that I 
could well imagine it a fine refuge after a storm. But I 
had never even heard of this before and was not expect- 
ing to find it. Then we raced forth Sullivan-ward and I 
was heartily glad to be gone. 

The territory into which we were now passing was that 
described in the first chapter of this book — of all places 
that I ever lived in my youth the most pleasing to me and 
full of the most colorful and poetic of memories. Infancy 
and its complete non-understanding had just gone. For 
me, when we arrived here, adolescence — the inquisitive 
boy of twelve to sixteen — had not yet arrived. This was 
the region of the wonder period of youth, when trees, 
clouds, the sky, the progression of the days, the sun, the 
rains, the grass all filled me with delight, an overpower- 
ing sense of beauty, charm, mystery. How eager I was 
to know, at times — and yet at other times not. How I 
loved to sit and gaze just drinking it all in, the sensory 
feel and glory of it. And then I had gone on to other 
ideas and other places and this had never come back — 
not once in any least way — and now I was to see it all 
again, or the region of it 

Sullivan, as we found on consulting our map, lay only 
twentyfive miles south, or thereabouts. Our road lay 
through a perfectly flat region, so flat and featureless that 
it should have been uninteresting and yet it was not. I 
have observed this of regions as of people, that however 
much alike they may appear to be in character there is, 
nevertheless, a vast difference in their charm or lack of it. 
This section in which I had been partially reared had 



414 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

charm — not the charm of personal predisposition, as oth- 
ers will testify, but real charm. The soil was rich — a 
sandy loam. The trees were shapely and healthy — peace- 
ful trees, not beaten by angry winds and rains. The fields 
were lush with grass or grain — warm bottom lands these, 
composed of soil carried down by ancient rivers — now, in 
the last hundred years or so, given names. As we came 
out of Terre Haute I turned and looked back at it, a 
prosperous, vigorous town. East of it, in a healthy, 
fruitful region, in that hill country around Reelsville and 
Brazil, there had been coal mines — soft coal mines, pro- 
viding work and fuel. Here on our route to Sullivan 
were other mines, at Farmersburg, seven miles out, a 
town by the way which I recalled as being somehow an 
outpost of the priest who read mass at Sullivan, at Shel- 
burne and other places still farther south. You could see 
the black, dirty breakers across flat green fields in which 
stood round healthy trees. 

As we went south, one of those warm sudden rains 
sprang up, or came down — one of those quick, heavy rains 
which I recognized as characteristic of the region of my 
infancy. We saw it coming in the distance, a thickening 
of smoke clouds over some groves in the west. Then a 
green fog seemed to settle between us and the trees, and 
I knew it was raining. 

"Here it comes," I called. "Had we better get the 
top up?" 

Bert, who was now the master of motion and a radi- 
cally different temperament to Speed, paid no heed. He 
was very taciturn or meditative at times, but equally gay 
at others, and much more self sufficient and reliant, if 
anything. I had been most interested by the quiet, con- 
trolling way in which he had gone about getting himself 
housed and fed at night and at other times. Porters and 
garage managers gave no least care to Bert. He man- 
aged them and suggested ways and means to us occasion- 
ally. Whenever anything happened to the car he leisurely 
extracted himself with the aid of his crutches and set about 



A LUSH, EGYPTIAN LAND 415 

adjusting it as though there were not the least thing de- 
fective about him. It was interesting, almost amusing. 

But now, as I say, he paid no heed and soon a few 
heavy drops fell, great, splattering globules that left inch 
size wet spots on our clothing, and then we were in the 
storm. It gushed. 

"Now, will you listen?" I observed as we jumped down. 
Franklin and I bustled about the task of getting the hood 
up. Before we could do it, though — almost before we 
could get our raincoats on — it was pouring — a torrent. 
It seemed to come down in bucketfuls. Then, once we 
had the hood up and the seats dried and our raincoats on 
and were suffocating of heat, the storm was gone. The 
sun came out, the road looked golden, the grass was heav- 
enly. In the distance one could see it raining elsewhere, 
far across the fields. 

"Yes," I observed feelingly and tenderly, " 'this is me 
own, me native land;' only I wish it wouldn't make its 
remembered characteristics quite so obvious. I can be 
shown that it is just as it used to be, without being killed." 

The land smiled. I'm sure it did. Aren't there such 
things as smiling lands? 

And a little farther on, without any suggestion from 
me, for I am well satisfied that he would never be so in- 
fluenced, Franklin was commenting on the luxurious char- 
acter of the region. The houses were all small and sim- 
ple, very tasteless little cottages, but very good and new 
and seemingly comfortable, sheltering no doubt the sons 
and daughters of people who had been here when I was. 
Excellent automobiles were speeding along the roads, 
handsome western makes of cars — not so many Fords. 
The cattle in the fields looked healthy, fat. Timothy and 
corn were standing waist high. It was hot, as it should 
be in a fat riverland like this. We had not gone far be- 
fore we had to get out to examine a hay baling machine — 
the first hay baler (for the use of individual farmers) I 
had ever seen. There had been a haypress at Sullivan, 
a most wonderful thing to me to contemplate in my day — 
a horse going round in a ring and so lifting and dropping 



4i6 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

a great weight which compressed the hay in a box; but 
this was different. It was standing out in an open field 
near three haystacks and was driven by a gasoline motor, 
a force which made short work of the vast quantities of 
hay piled on the feeder. Three men operated it. The 
horses that drew it stood idle to one side. 

"How much hay can you bale in a day?" I asked of one 
of the farmers. 

"Depends on the number working," he replied. "We 
three men can do up a couple of stacks like that." He 
was referring to two goodly mounds of sweet brown hay 
that stood to the left. 

"Do you call it hard work?" I asked. 

"No, not very," he answered. "Pitching hay from the 
stacks down onto it and pulling the bales away." 

"What will the farmer not get next?" I inquired of 
Franklin. "It seems that nearly all the heavy labor of 
the old days is gone." 

"It's true," he said. "I never saw a machine like this 
before. I've heard of them. All that they need now is a 
good, cheap traction plow and farming will be a weak 
man's job — like golf — and twice as healthy." 

We climbed back. 

Scudding along under green trees and through stretches 
of meadow and under a hot, almost baking sun, we came 
at last to various signs reading: "For Fine Dry Goods 
Visit Squibbs, South Side Square," or "If You Want The 
Best Hardware In Sullivan Go To Beach & Gens." 

"Ha ! then someone of the Beach family has gone into 
the hardware business," I commented. 

Presently a huge sign appeared hanging across the 
road. It read: 

"Sullivan Welcomes You." 

"Imagine 'dirty old Sullivan' venturing to welcome any- 
one !" I commented, quoting my sister. "If she could 
only see that!" I added. 

"There's another name I recognize, anyhow," I com- 



A LUSH, EGYPTIAN LAND 417 

merited to Franklin, as another sign came into view. 
"Some member of that family owned the clover field back 
of our house in my time. Good luck to him, if it's in good 
condition." 

In a few minutes we were rolling up a street which 
would have taken us to the public square if we had fol- 
lowed it; instantly I was on the qui vive to see what if 
anything I could remember. This was a section, the north- 
west corner of Sullivan, which I recalled as having been a 
great open common in my time, filled principally with dog 
fennel and dandelion and thistles and containing only one 
house, a red one, occupied by an Irish section boss, whose 
wife (my mother having befriended her years before 
when first she and her husband came to Sullivan) had 
now, at the time my mother was compelled to make this 
return pilgrimage, befriended us by letting us stay — 
mother and us three youngsters — until she could find a 
house. It was a period of three or four days, as I re- 
call it. The father of this family, Thomas Brogan, was a 
great, heavy handed, hulking, red faced Irishman who 
knew only work and Catholicism. On Sunday in some 
weird, stiff combination of Sunday clothes and squeaky 
shoes, he was accustomed to lead In single file procession 
his more or less recalcitrant family through weeds and 
along the broken board walks of this poorly equipped 
region to mass. I saw him often, even In my day. His 
youngest son, Harry Brogan, often played with Ed and 
me and once he instigated some other, older boys, to lick 
us — a tale too long and too sad to be told here. His sec- 
ond youngest son, Jim — alias Red Brogan and subse- 
quently known to fame as "Red Oliphant," a bank robber 
(finally electrocuted by the state of New York at Sing 
Sing for murder — he and three or four others shot a night 
watchman, or so the police said) — was often beaten by 
his father with a horsewhip because he would not work 
in the local coal mine or perhaps do other drudging about 
his home. This coal mine, by the way, had killed his 
elder brother Frank some three or four years before by 
explosion, a tragedy which you might have thought would 



4i8 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

have ended coal mining in that family. Not at all. Far 
from it. These beatings had continued until the boy ran 
away, uneducated of course, and became the character he 
subsequently was or was alleged to have been. I do not 
know. If you want to know of a fairly good boy who died 
a criminal in the chair owing to conditions over which he 
had no least control or certainly very little, this was one. 
If I were Red Brogan and were summoned before the 
eternal throne — would that there were one — I would 
show Him the stripes on my back and my neglected brain 
and ask Him why, if He were God, He had forsaken me. 
I have heard my mother tell how she was present at 
the time this older brother's body was brought up out of 
the mine (eight men were killed at the time) and how 
tragic seemingly was the grief of both Mr. and Mrs. 
Brogan. Later on, after we left Sullivan, the family be- 
came somewhat more prosperous and it is likely that the 
youngest son was not compelled to work as the others had. 



CHAPTER LI 



ANOTHER "old HOME" 



Be that as it may, it was much of this and related mat- 
ters that I was ruminating as I came through this region. 
But I could find no traces of what had formerly been. 
There was no red house anywhere — repainted probably. 
The coal mine, which I had remembered as being visible 
from this section, was not to be seen. Later I learned 
that it had been worked out and abandoned. The coal 
had all been dug out. Many new small houses in orderly, 
compact rows now made streets here. We had Bert fol- 
low this road a few blocks and then turn discreetly to the 
east until we should cross the railroad tracks, for I re- 
called that it was across these tracks or track facing 
another weed-grown square, and what was then a mildly 
industrious institution of the town, the hay press, that 
our house stood. 

This square had always seemed a fascinating thing to 
me, for despite the fact that it was on the extreme out- 
skirts of the town and in a district where (a little farther 
out) stood the village slaughterhouse, emitting uncom- 
fortable odors when the wind was blowing right, still it 
was near the town's one railroad station and switching 
yards — there was a turntable near the hay press — and we 
could see the trains go by and watch the principal industry 
of the place, switching, the taking on or dropping off of 
cars. Every morning at ten-thirty and every afternoon 
at two there was a freight train — the one in the morning 
from the south, the other in the afternoon from the north 
— which stopped and switched here. As an eight to ten- 
year-old boy how often I have sat on our porch, playing 
"engine" or "freight" with empty cigar boxes for cars 
(an extra big one for a caboose) and a spool for a smoke- 

419 



420 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

stack, and imitated the switching and "making up" which 
I saw going on across the common. A delicious sense of 
wonder and delight always lingered in my mind in con- 
nection with Sullivan, for although we were apparently 
desperately poor there were compensations which the in- 
scrutable treasure of youth trebled and quadrupled — nay 
multiplied an hundred and a thousand fold. 

This indeed, I said to myself, as I looked at it now 
trying eagerly to get it all back and failing so dismally 
in the main, was that Egyptian land of which I have 
spoken. Here were those blue skies, those warm rains. 
Back of this house which I am now to see once more 
perhaps will be that perfect field of clover — only re- 
membered in the summer state, so naturally optimistic 
is the human soul. In the sky will be soaring buzzards, 
surely. Over a field of green will stand a tall, gnarled 
dead tree trunk, its gauntness concealed by a cape of wild 
ivy. On its topmost level will sit a brown hawk or a 
grey headed eagle calculating on methods of capture. 
Across the street, up the road a little way, will be the 
brown home of "crazy old Bowles," who used to come to 
our well for water singing and sometimes executing a 
weird step, or gazing vacantly and insanely at the sky. 
He was an ex-army man, shot in the head at Lookout 
Mountain and now a little daffy. He had been pensioned 
and was spending his declining years here. "Crazy old 
Bowles" was his local name. 

A few steps farther out this same road, the last house 
but one (which was ours) would be the house of Mrs. 
Hudson, a lonely and somewhat demented old widow 
whose children had long since gone and left her to live 
here quite alone. We children thought her a witch. 
Down in a hollow, beyond our house, where lay the whit- 
ening skulls and bones of many an ox and cow, stood the 
tumbledown slaughterhouse, to me a fearsome place. I 
always imagined dead cows prowling about at night. 
Over the way from our house had been a great elm, in 
which Ed and I used to climb to swing on its branches. 
In its shade, in summer time, Tillie, Ed and I played 



ANOTHER "OLD HOME" 421 

house. I can hear the wind in the leaves yet. Beyond 
the slaughterhouse eastward was a great cornfield. In 
autumn, when the frost was whitening the trees, I have 
seen thousands of crows on their way southward resting 
on the rail fences which surrounded this field, and on the 
slaughterhouse roof and on a few lone trees here and 
there, holding a conference. Such a cawing and chat- 
tering! 

Beyond the clover field again, in a southeasterly direc- 
tion, was the fine farm of Mr. Beach, his white house, 
his red barn, his trees sheltering peacocks that in summer 
"called for rain." In the fields all about were blackber- 
ries, raspberries, dewberries, wild plums, wild crabapple 
trees — a host of things which we could gather free. If 
either Ed or I had had the least turn of ingenuity we 
might have trapped or shot enough wild animals to have 
kept us in meat — possibly even in funds, so numerous 
were various forms of small game. In summer we could 
have picked unlimited quantities of berries and helped 
mother preserve them against dark days. We did — some. 
But in the main all we did was to fish a little — as the 
thought of pleasure moved us. 

But oh, this pleasing realm ! Once here I could not see 
it as it really was at the moment, nor can I now write of 
it intelligently or dispassionately. It is all too involved 
with things which have no habitat in land or sea or sky. 
The light of early morning, the feet of youth, dreams, 

dreams, dreams Yes, here once, I told myself now, 

we carried coal in winter, Ed and Al and I, but what 
matter? Was not youth then ours to comfort us? My 
father was gloomy, depressed, in no position or mood to 
put right his disordered affairs. But even so, oh Sullivan I 
Sullivan! of what wonders and dreams are not your 
poorest and most commonplace aspects compounded! 

As we crossed the tracks by the railroad station, only 
two long blocks from "our house" in the old days, I be- 
gan to recognize familiar landmarks. At the first corner 
beyond the station where I always turned north had been 
four young trees and here now were four quite large ones. 



422 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

I was convinced they were the same. Looking up the 
street north I recognized the open common still intact, 
and as we neared the house the identical hay press, if you 
please, newly covered with tin and perhaps otherwise 
repaired, but standing close to the tracks, where formerly 
the hay was loaded onto cars. By the sounds issuing 
from it, it must have been busy indeed. At the spot where 
we now were at the moment should have been Bowles' 
house, a low, one story yellow affair, but now only a patch 
of weeds and a broken well top indicated that a house 
had once stood there. Looking quickly for "our house" 
I distinguished it, one of a row of seemingly new and 
much poorer ones, but this older house was still the best 
of them all. Beyond, where Mrs. Hudson's house should 
have been and the great elm, and the Poe-like slaughter- 
house, was nothing but a railroad track curving Y-fashion 
and joining another which ran where once the slaughter- 
house hollow had been. There was no hollow any more, 
no tree, no nothing. Only a right-angled railroad track 
or switching Y. 

My field of clover! 

It was an unkempt weed patch, small, disreputable, 
disillusionizing — a thing that had never been large at all 
or had shrunk to insignificant proportions. My tree — the 
column of the brooding hawk — it was gone. There was 
no fine fecund truck patch alongside our house, where 
once we had raised corn, potatoes, peas, onions, beans — 
almost our total summer and winter fare. Three other 
small shabby houses and their grounds occupied the field 
we had cultivated. I realized now in looking at this what 
an earnest, industrious woman my mother must have been. 

A band of ragamuffin children were playing out in 
front, children with bare legs, bare arms, in most cases 
half bare bodies, and so dirty! When they saw our car 
they gathered in a group and surveyed us. One of the 
littlest of them had a sore-eyed puppy elevated to his 
loving breast. It was a "poor white trash" neighborhood. 

"My brother's got tabuckalosis of the bones," one little 
girl said to me, nodding at a skimpy, distrait looking 







MY FATHER'S MILL 
Sullivan, Indiana 



ANOTHER "OLD HOME" 423 

youth who stood to one side, rather pleased than not that 
his ailment should attract so much attention. 

"Oh, no," I said, "surely not. He doesn't look as 
though he had anything but a good appetite, does he, 
Franklin?" 

"Certainly not," replied the latter cheerfully. 

The youth gazed at me solemnly. 

"Oh, yes, he has," continued his sister, "the doctor 
said so." 

"But don't you know that doctors don't know every- 
thing?" put in Franklin. "Doctors just imagine things, 
the same as other people. Why, look at him — he's nice 
and healthy." 

"No, he ain't either," replied this protector argumen- 
tatively. "If he don't get better he'll haff to go to the 
'ospital. Our doctor says so. My mother ain't got the 
money or he'd go now." 

"Dear! Dear I" I exclaimed, looking at the youth 
sympathetically. "But there, he looks so well. You feel 
all right, don't you?" I asked of the contemplative vic- 
tim, who was staring at me with big eyes. 

"Yes, sir." 

"You're never sick in bed?" 

"No, sir." 

"Well, now here's a nickel. And don't you get sick. 
You'll be well so long as you think so." 

"Ooh, let's see it," commanded the advertising sister, 
drawing near and trying to take the hand with the coin. 

"No." 

"Well, let's see how it looks." 

"No." 

"Well, then, keep it, smarty! You'll have to give it to 
maw, anyhow." 

I began to wonder whether "tabuckalosis" of the bones 
was not something developed for trade purposes or 
whether it was really true. 

The house was in exactly the same position and phys- 
ically unchanged save that in our day the paint was new 
and white; whereas, now, it was drab and dirty. The 



424 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

yard, or garden as the English would call it, had all been 
cut away, or nearly so, leaving only a dusty strip of faded 
grass to the right as one looked in. In "our" time there 
was a neat white picket fence and gate in front. It was 
gone now. Inside, once, were roses in profusion, planted 
by mother, and a few small fruit trees — a peach, a cherry, 
an apple tree. Now there were none. The fence on 
which I used to sit of a morning — the adored back fence 
— and watch the swallows skimming over the clover and 
the yellow humble bees among the blooms was gone also. 
Not a trace of all the beauty that once was mine. I stood 
here and thought of the smooth green grass that I had 
rejoiced in, the morning and evening skies, the cloud for- 
mations, the bluebird that built a nest under one corner 
of our roof, the swallows that built their hard bony nests 
in our chimneys and lost them occasionally — they and 
their poor naked young tumbling to ruin on our cool 
hearthstones. Had it been in fact or only in my own 
''(oul? 

I thought of my mother walking about in the cool of 
the morning and the evening, rejoicing in nature. I saw 
her with us on the back porch or the front — Tillie, Ed, 
myself, and some of our elders gathered about her — 
listening to stories or basking in the unbelievable comfort 
of her presence. 

Here, at dusk, I said, Ed and I used to throw cinders 
and small rocks at the encircling bats, hoping, as Ed used 
to say, to "paralyze" them. From our doorstep at night 
we could hear the whistle of incoming and outgoing trains 
and see the lighted coaches as they passed. An old grist 
mill a half mile "down the track," as we always referred 
to the region due south, ground grain all night and we 
could hear the poetic rumble of the stones. Here, oc- 
casionally, my brooding father would come from Terre 
Haute, to sit with us and bring a little money — the money 
that he could spare from past accumulated debts. 

My brother Rome came here once — "to get drunk and 
disgrace us," as my sister said. My elder sisters came, to 
avoid their father and have the consoling counsel and love 



ANOTHER "OLD HOME" 42S 

of their mother. My brother Al came from my Uncle 
Martin's fniit farm at North Manchester, if you please, 
to lord it over us with his rustic strength, to defeat and 
terrorize all our accumulated enemies (Ed and I had a 
genius for storing up enemies for him) and to elicit our 
contempt for his country bumpkin manners. And here 
finally when my mother was distrait as to means of weath- 
ering the persistent storm and we were actually cold and 
hungry, my brother Paul, now a successful minstrel man 
and the author of "The Paul Dresser Comic Songster" 
(containing all the songs sung in the show) and now trav- 
eling in this region, came to her aid and removed us all 
to Evansville — the spring following this worst of winters. 

In addition to all this my father's first mill was still 
here at that time — and even now as I later discovered — 
only two blocks away, behind the station — burned once 
but restored afterward — and also an old house which he 
had built and owned but had been compelled to sell. In 
those days these were the signs and emblems of our for- 
mer greatness, which kept our drooping spirits from sink- 
ing too low and made us decide not to be put upon forever 
and ever by life. 

As I stood looking at this I had once more that sinking 
sensation I experienced in Warsaw and Terre Haute. 
Life moves so insensibly out from under you. It slips 
away like a slow moving tide. You look and the box or 
straw that once was at your doorstep is far down stream 
— or rather you are the box, the straw. Your native 
castle is miles removed. I went in and knocked at the 
door while Franklin, without, sketched and photographed 
to suit himself. A slattern of a woman, small, young, 
stodgy, greasy, but not exactly unattractive, came to the 
door and stared at me in no particularly friendly way. 
Why are some animals so almost unconsciously savage? 

"I beg your pardon," I said. "I lived here once, years 
ago. Would you let me come in and look over the 
house?" 

As I spoke a tall, gaunt yokel of not over twentysix 
ambled out from an inner room. He was an attractive 



426 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

specimen physically but so crude and ignorant. He 
looked me over superficially. I might have been a police- 
man or an enemy. 

I repeated my question. 

"Yes, I guess you kin look it over," he said distantly. 
"It ain't quite made up yet. The boarders don't keep 
their rooms just as spick as might be." 

Boarders! In this unkempt house! It was a litter. 
The best pictures were flyspecked lithographs or chro- 
mes. The floors when they were laid with anything were 
covered with earthy looking rag carpets — creaky, yellow, 
nondescript furniture. A litter and crush of useless things 
— tin and glass lamps, papers, cheap pamphlets — a red 
tablecloth or two — and there were flies and odors and 
unmade beds. 

I went through, looking into each room, restoring it to 
my mind as it had been. We had not had much — the 
rooms in our day were sparely and poorly furnished, taste- 
lessly so no doubt — but there is an art in spareness and 
bareness and cleanliness, and still more in a pervasive per- 
sonality like my mother's. What we had, thanks to her, 
was clean and neat, with flowers permitted to approach 
as near as summer and soil and pots made possible. I 
realized now that it was her temperament which like a 
benediction or a perfume had pervaded, surrounded, suf- 
fused this whole region and this home for me. It was 
my mother and myself and my brothers and sisters in 
part whom I was remembering — not just the house and 
the grounds. 

Aside from this house there was not much that I 
wanted to see — not much with which I was intimately 
identified. A Catholic church to which a priest came once 
a month and in which the Catholic school was held — an 
institution which, fortunately, I was not permitted to at- 
tend very long, for want of shoes to wear; the old mill 
which my father built and which after a fire was restored, 
and in the mill pond of which Ed and I were wont to fish, 
on occasion; the courthouse square and postoflice, in the 
latter of which I have often waited eagerly for the dis- 



ANOTHER "OLD HOME" 427 

tribution of mail — not that it meant anything to me per- 
sonally, but because my mother was so pathetically eager 
for word of some kind; the Busseron river or creek, 
which I knew we would see as we left town. We left this 
group of chattering children, one of whom, a girl, wanted 
to sell us the small dog in order, as she said, to buy her- 
self a new riding whip. I could not decide whether she 
was indulging in a flight of fancy — so poverty stricken 
was her home — or whether on some farm near by was a 
horse she was actually permitted to ride. She was brisk 
and stodgy — a black eyed, garrulous little creature with 
a fondness for great words, but no real charm. 

With one backward glance on my part we were off to 
the mill, which stood just as it was in my day, only instead 
of running full time as it did then there was an assignee's 
sign on the door saying that all the stock and fixtures of 
the Sullivan Woolen Mills Company would be sold under 
the hammer at a given date to satisfy certain judgments — 
a proof I thought of Mr. Shattuck's assertions. The 
small white Catholic Church, still at hand, was no longer 
a Catholic Church but a hall, the Catholics having moved 
to a more imposing edifice. The county courthouse 
was entirely new, a thing in the usual fashion and scarcely 
so attractive as the old. The little old postoffice in its 
brown shell was replaced by a brick and glass structure, 
owned no doubt by the government. There was a Car- 
negie Library of sorts — what town has been skipped? A 
new central public school, various new churches, Baptist, 
Methodist, Presbyterian, showing where a part of the 
savings of the American people are being put. We 
stopped for lunch and picture postcards — and found only 
sleepy, lackadaisical merchants and clerks, a type of in- 
dolence befitting a hot, inter-river region. For to the 
east of this town about twenty miles was the White river 
(which we crossed at Indianapolis) , and to the west about 
ten miles the Wabash, and all between was low, alluvial 
soil — a wonderful region for abundant crops — a region 
frequently overflowed in the springtime by the down rush- 
ing floods of the north. 



CHAPTER LII 

HAIL, Indiana! 

Going out of Sullivan I made an observation, based 
on the sight of many men and women, sitting on doorsteps 
or by open windows or riding by in buggies or automo- 
biles, or standing in yards or fields — that a lush, fecund 
land of this kind produces a lush, fecund population — 
and I think this was well demonstrated here. There was 
a certain plumpness about many people that I saw — men 
and women — a ruddy roundness of flesh and body, which 
indicated as much. I saw mothers on doorsteps or lawns 
with kicking, crowing children in their arms or young- 
sters playing about them, who illustrated the point ex- 
actly. The farmers that I saw were all robust, chunky 
men. The women — farm girls and town wives — had al- 
most a Dutch stolidity. I gazed, hardly willing to be- 
lieve, and yet convinced. It was the richness of this soil 
— black, sandy muck — of which these people partook. 
It made me think that governments ought to take starv- 
ing populations off unfertile soils and put them on land 
like this. 

Going south from here Franklin and I fell into a very 
curious and intricate discussion. The subtlety of some 
people's private speculations at times astonishes me. Not 
that our conversation was at all extraordinary from any 
point of view, but it was so peculiar in spots. I am not 
wildly intoxicated by the spirit of my native state, not 
utterly so at any rate; yet I must admit that there is some- 
thing curiously different about it — delicate, poetic, gener- 
ative- — I hardly know what I want to say. On the way 
there I had been saying to Franklin that I doubted whether 
I should find the West still the same or whether it was as 
generative and significant as I had half come to make 

428 



HAIL, INDIANA 1 429 

myself believe it was. After leaving Warsaw I had re- 
marked that either I or the town had changed greatly, 
and since the town looked the same, it must be me. To 
this he assented and now added: 

"You should go sometime to a Speedway race at In- 
dianapolis, as I have often, year after year since it was 
first built. There, just when the first real summer days 
begin to take on that wonderful light, and a kind of lumi- 
nous silence over things suggests growing corn and ripen- 
ing wheat and quails whistling in the meadows over by 
the woods, you will find an assemblage of people from 
all over this country and from other countries — cars by 
the thousands with foreign licenses; which make you feel 
that this is the center of things. I've been there, and get- 
ting a bit tired of watching the cars have gone over into 
the woods inside the grounds and lain down on the grass 
on my back. There would be the same familiar things 
about me, the sugar and hickory trees, the little cool 
breeze that comes up in the middle of the day, through 
the foliage, the same fine sky that I used to look up into 
when a boy; but, circling around me continuously for 
hours, coming up from the south and along the great 
stretches, and from the north bank of the track, were 
the weird roar and thunder of an international conflict. 
Then I would get up and look away south along the 
grandstands and see flying in the Indiana sunlight the 
flags of all the great nations, Italy and England, France 
and Belgium, Holland and Germany. So I sometimes 
think the spirit that has been instrumental in distinguish- 
ing this particular section from other sections of the coun- 
try is something still effective; that it does not always lead 
away from itself; that it has established its freedom from 
isolation and mere locality and accomplished here a quite 
vital contact with universal thought." 

"That's all very flattering to Indiana," I said, "but do 
you really believe that?" 

"Indeed I do," he replied. "This is a most peculiar 
state. Almost invariably, on socalled clear days in July 
and August out here, an indescribable haze over every- 



430 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

thing leaves the horizons unaccounted for and the dis- 
tance a sort of mystery. This, it has always seemed to 
me, is bound to produce in certain types of mind a kind of 
unrest. In such light, buzzards hanging high above you 
or crows flying over the woods are no longer merely the 
things that they are but become the symbols of a spiritual, 
if I may use the word, or assthetic, suggestiveness that is 
unescapable. The forests here also, or such as used to be 
here, must have had their influence. Temples and ca- 
thedrals, all works of art, are designed to impress men's 
minds, leading them into varying conditions of conscious- 
ness. The forests of sugar and beech and poplar and 
oak and hickory about here originally, it has been said, 
were the most wonderful on the face of the earth. No 
one had ever experimented with the action of such things 
as these on people's minds, to determine specific results, 
but I fancy they have them. In fact I sometimes think 
there is something about soil and light, a magnetism or 
creative power like the electric generative field of a dy- 
namo, which produces strange, new, interesting things. 
How else can you explain the fact that 'Ben Hur' was 
written out here at Crawfordville, under a beech tree, or 
why the first automobile course, after Brooklands, Eng- 
land, was built here at Indianapolis, or why La Salle, with 
a company of adventurers, should come canoeing down 
the St. Joseph and the Maumee into this region? I be- 
lieve thoroughly in the presence of a great resource of 
relative truth, constituted of the facts of all human 
things; that this resource is available to anyone whoever 
or wherever he may be, who can, in his mind, achieve a 
clear understanding of his own freedom from the neces- 
sities of mere physical communication. This may seem 
to be getting a little thin but it is not beside the actual 
point if you trouble to think of it." 

"That's rather flattering to dear old Indiana," I re- 
peated, "but still I'm not sure that I'm absolutely con- 
vinced. You make out a fairly plausible case." 

"Look at the tin plate trust," he continued, "one of 
the first and most successful. It originated in Kokomo 



HAIL, INDIANA! 431 

and expanded until it controlled the Rock Island Railway, 
Diamond Match, and other corporations. Look at the 
first American automobile — it came from here — and 
James Whitco'mb Riley and George Ade and Tarkington, 
and other things like that." 

"Yes, 'and other things like that,' " I quoted. "You're 
right." 

I did not manage to break in on his dream, however. 

"Take this man Haynes, for instance, and his car. 
Here is a case where the soil or the light or the general 
texture of the country generated a sense of freedom, right 
here in Indiana in a single mind, and to a great result; 
but instead of his going away or its taking that direction, 
Haynes developed his own sense of freedom right here 
by building his motor car here. He rose above his local 
limitations without leaving. Through his accomplish- 
ment he has made possible a fine freedom for some of the 
rest of us. After all, individual freedom is not simply 
the inclination and the liberty to get up and go elsewhere; 
nor is it, as people seem to think, something only to be 
embodied in forms of government. I consider it some- 
thing quite detached from any kind of government what- 
ever, a thing which exists in the human mind and, indeed, 
is mind." 

Franklin was at his very best, I thought. 

"This is getting very esoteric, Franklin," I commented, 
"very, very esoteric." 

"Just the same," he continued, "the automobile is a 
part of this same sense of freedom, the desire for freedom 
made manifest; not the freedom of the group but the 
freedom of the individual. That's about what it amounts 
to in the ultimate. Here we have been traveling across 
country, not limited in our ability to respond as we chose 
to the 'call of the road' and of the outdoors in general; 
and we have been bound by no rule save our own, not 
by the schedule of any organization. That same free- 
dom was in Haynes' mind in the first instance, and right 
here, stationary in Indiana, — and it was generated by 
Indiana, — the conditions here." 



432 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

"Yes," I agreed. 

"Well, to me Indiana is noteworthy in having done and 
in still doing just that sort of thing. It stands unique in 
having produced a great many celebrated men and women 
in all departments of work, not only those who have de- 
parted from the state but those who have remained and 
gained a publicity for their achievements far outside its 
boundaries. It was, I'm confident, primarily this soil- 
generated call that came to you. It came to me. It must 
have come the same to many others, or to all I should say 
who have accomplished things, those who have grasped 
at or struggled for, if you wish to speak of it that way, 
universal standards and scope. You felt it and picked up 
and went away some years ago; now on your return you 
do not feel the old generative impulse any more; every- 
thing seems miserably changed and the beauty to a large 
extent faded. But it is not. I also do not find things the 
same any more. Yet I am convinced the old call is still 
here ; and when I return I have a feeling that out here on 
the farms, driving the cows in the morning and at evening, 
in the small towns, and hanging around the old watergaps 
along the creeks, are boys just like we used to be, to 
whom the most vital thing in life is this call and the long- 
ing — to be free. Not to be free necessarily or at all, of 
these local experiences, but to achieve a working contact 
with universal things." 

"That sounds very well, at least," I commented. 

"There's something in it, I tell you," he insisted, "and 
what's more, though I'm not inclined to make so very 
much of that, Indiana was originally French territory and 
La Salle and his companions coming down here may have 
brought a psychic sprig of the original French spirit, 
which has resulted in all these things we have been dis- 
cussing." 

"You surely don't believe that?" I questioned. 

"Well, I don't know. Certainly Indiana is different — 
inquisitive, speculative, constructive — the characteristics 
which have most distinguished the French. And, by the 
way," he added, returning to Haynes and his car for a 




^ o 

Z g 



HAIL, INDIANA 1 433 

moment, "a short time before Haynes developed his 
automobile, though not long enough, I'm sure, or to such 
an extent that he could have known much of its progress, 
the same problem was being studied and worked out in 
France by Levasser." 

He looked at me as though he thought this was sig- 
nificant, then continued: "But I'm really not inclined to 
think that all this stuff is true or that there is a deep laid 
spiritual connection between France and Indiana. I 
don't. It's all amusing speculation, but I do believe there 
is something in the soil and light idea." 

He leaned back and we ceased talking. 



CHAPTER LIII 

FISHING IN THE BUSSERON AND A COUNTY FAIR 

It was just outside of Sullivan, a mile or two or 
three, that we encountered the Busseron, the first stream 
in which, as a boy, I ever fished. The strangeness of that 
experience comes back to me even now — the wonder, the 
beauty of a shallow stream, pooled in places, its banks 
sentineled by tall trees, its immediate shoreline orna- 
mented by arrogant weeds and bushes blooming violently. 

The stillness of the woods, the novelty of a long bam- 
boo pole and a white line and a red and green cork; a 
hook, worms, the nibble of the unseen creature below the 
yellow surface of the stream. Even now I hear a distant 
gun shot — hunters prowling after birds. I see a dragon 
fly, steely blue and gauze of wing, fluttering and shimmer- 
ing above my cork (why should they love cork floats so 
much?). My brother Ed has a nibble! Great, kind 
heaven, his cork is gone — once ! twice 1 1 

"Pull him out, Ed." 

"For God's sake, pull him out!" 

"Gee, look at that!" 

Oh, a black and white silvery fish — or a dark, wet, slip- 
pery cat — as lovely and lustrous as porcelain. Oh, it's 
on the grass now, flipping here and there. My nerves are 
all a-tingle, my hair on end, with delight. I can scarcely 
wait until I get a bite — hours perhaps — for my brother 
Ed was always a luckier fisherman than I, or a better one. 

And then late in the afternoon, after hours of this 
wonder world, we trudge home, along the warm, dusty, 
yellow country road; the evening sun is red in the 
West, our feet buried in the dust. Not a wagon, not 
a sound, save that of wood doves, bluejays, the spir- 
itual, soulful, lyric thrush. On a long, limp twig with a 

434 



FISHING IN THE BUSSERON 435 

fork at the end is strung our fish, so small and stiff now — 
so large, glistening, brilliant, when we caught them. On 
every hand are field fragrances, the distant low of cows 
and the grunts of pigs. I hear the voice of a farmer — 
"Poo-gy! Poo-gy! Poogy! Poogyl" 

"Gee, ma kin fry these — huh?" 

"You bet." 

Brown-legged, dusty, tired, we tramp back to the 
kitchen door. There she is, plump, tolerant, smiling — a 
gentle, loving understanding of boys and their hungry, 
restless ways written all over her face. 

"Yes, they're fine. We'll have them for supper. Wash 
and clean them, and then wash your hands and feet and 
come in." 

On the grass we sit, a pan between us, cleaning those 
penny catches. The day has been so wonderful that we 
think the fish must be perfect. And they are, to us. And 
then the after-supper grouping on the porch, the velvety 
dusk descending, the bats, the mosquitoes, the smudge 
carried about the house to drive out the mosquitoes, tales 
of Indians and battle chiefs long dead, the stars, slumber. 

I can feel my mother's hand as I lean against her knee 
and sleep. 

By just such long, hot yellow roads as Ed and I trav- 
ersed as boys Franklin and I came eventually to Vin- 
cennes, Indiana, but only after traversing a region so flat 
and yet so rich that it was a delight to look upon. I had 
never really seen it before — or its small, sweet simple 
towns — Paxton, Carlisle, Oaktown, Busseron. The fields 
were so rich and warm and moist that they were given 
over almost entirely to the growing of melons — water 
and cantaloupe, great far flung stretches of fields. Large, 
deep-bodied, green-painted wagons came creaking by, 
four, five, and six in a row, hauling melons to the nearest 
siding where were cars. There were melon packing 
sheds to be seen here and there, where muskmelons were 
being labeled and crated. It was lovely. At one point 
we stopped a man and bought two watermelons and sat 
down by the roadside to eat. Other machines passed and 



436 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

the occupants looked at us as though we had stolen them. 

"Here we are," I said to Franklin, "three honest men, 
eating our hard-earned melons, and these people believe 
we stole them." 

"Yes, but think of our other crimes," he replied, "and 
anyhow, who wouldn't — three men eating melons by a 
roadside, the adjoining fields of which are dotted with 
melons." 

The man who had passed in the buggy had leered at 
us in such a convicting way. 

And yet I have Franklin and Bert to witness we paid 
ten cents each for two of the best melons we ever tasted. 

At Paxton and at Carlisle again we came upon coal 
mines — that vein of soft coal which seems to underlie this 
whole region. Miners in droves were to be seen walking 
along the roads as at Wilkes-Barre, their faces smudgy, 
their little lamps standing up from their caps, their big 
tin buckets hanging on or tucked under their arms. We 
stopped at one town and examined the exterior of a mine 
because it was so near the road. Every few seconds out 
of its subterranean depths (three hundred and fifty feet, 
the man told me) up a deep, dripping shaft would come a 
small platform carrying several small cars of coal, which 
would be shunted onto a runway and "empties" pushed in 
to take their places. I asked the man who ran the engine 
in the nearby shed how many tons of coal they would 
take out in a day. "Oh, about four hundred," he said. 

"Any men ever killed here?" 

"Yes, occasionally." 

"Recently?" 

"Well, there was an explosion two years ago." 

"Many men killed?" 

"Eight." 

"Were there any before that?" 

"Two, about three years before." 

He wiped his sweaty forehead with a grimy hand. 

"Wouldn't like to go down, would you?" he asked 
genially, after a time — quite unconscious of our earlier 
conversation, I think. 



FISHING IN THE BUSSERON 437 

"No, thanks," I replied. 

I had a sicky feeling, conveyed by that dark, dripping 
shaft. Three hundred and fifty feet — not me ! 

But I said to myself as I looked at all the healthy, 
smiling miners we met farther on, "If I were a prince or 
a president and these were my subjects, how proud I 
would be of a land that contained such — how earnest for 
their well being" — I had so little courage to do what they 
were doing. 

But in spite of these mines, which were deep and far- 
reaching, as we learned, in many districts stretching for 
miles in different directions, the soil manifested that same 
fertility and the land grew flatter and flatter. All the 
towns in here were apparently dependent upon them. 
There were no rises of ground. Interesting groves of 
trees crowded to the roadside at times, providing a cool- 
ing shade, and excessively marshy lands appeared, packed 
with hazel bushes and goldenrod, but no iron weed as in 
the East. The roads were sped over by handsome auto- 
mobiles — much finer in many instances than ours — and I 
took it that they were representative of the real farmer 
wealth here, a wealth we as a family had never been per- 
mitted to taste. 

In about two hours we entered Vincennes — a front tire 

having blown up just outside Sullivan on the banks of 

the Busseron. At its edge we came upon a fairgrounds 

so gaily bedecked with tents and flags that we parked 

;Dur car and went in — to see the sights. The Knox County 

Fair. It seemed to me that this farmers' show supported 

jmy belief in their prosperity, for to me at least it turned 

JDut to be the most interesting county fair I had ever seen. 

The animals displayed — prize sows and boars, horses and 

sheep of different breeds, chickens and domestic animals 

Df various kinds, — were intensely interesting to look at 

and so attractively displayed. I never saw so many fat 

jheep, dams and rams, nor more astonishing hogs, great, 

sleek rolling animals that blinked at us with their little 

;yes and sniffed and grunted. Great white pleasant tents 

ivere devoted to farm machinery and automobiles and 



438 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

by these alone one could tell that here was a prosperous 
and buying population, else the manufacturers had never 
troubled to send so much and such expensive machinery. 
All that the farmer could use — machines for ploughing, 
planting, cutting, reaping, binding, fertilizing, baling (I 
think I counted a score of separate machines of this 
kind), to others intended for use around the home — 
kerosene cook stoves, well pumps, cream separators, 
churns, washing machines — a whole host of these — to 
the latest inventions in motor ploughs and motor driven 
farm wagons — were here. The display of automobiles 
was lavish — really all the important makes were repre- 
sented and in addition there was a racetrack with races 
going on and a large number of tented amusements — the 
wild men from Boola-Boola; Calgero, the mindreader, 
several moving picture shows, a gypsy dancer, and the 
like. j 

Franklin and I browsed around at our leisure. On so i 
fine and so hot an afternoon it was amusing to idle under 
these great trees and study the country throng. A hungry 
boy was treated to "weenies" (the Indiana version of 
"hot dog") and coffee by him — a treat he was very back- 1 
ward about accepting. Hundreds, judging by the parked i 
cars outside, possessed automobiles. Various church con- 
gregations of the region had established restaurant booths | 
to aid one or other of their religious causes. At a table in j 
the booth of the Holy Trinity Roman Catholic Church of j 
Vincennes I ate a dish of chicken dumplings, a piece of 
cherry pie, and drank several glasses of milk, thereby j 
demonstrating, I think, that no inalienable enmity existed I 
between myself and the Catholic Church, at least not on^ 
the subject of food. At this booth, besides the several be- \ 
calicoed and bestarched old ladies who were in attend- 1 
ance, I noticed a tall Bernhardtesque girl of very graceful 
and sinuous lines who was helping to wait on people. She j 
had red hair, long delicate tapering fingers, a wasplike but j 
apparently uncorseted waist, and almond shaped greenish 
grey eyes. No edict of the Church prevented her from 
wearing hip ti^ht skirts or one that came lower than | 



FISHING IN THE BUSSERON 439 

perhaps four or five inches below the knee. She had on 
rings and pins and, quite unconsciously I think, took grace- 
ful and dreamful attitudes. There was a kind of high 
scorn — if not rebellion — in her mood, for one aiding a 

religious cause 

I wondered how long VIncennes and the sacred pre- 
cincts of the Church would retain her. 



CHAPTER LIV 

THE FERRY AT DECKER 



Is it an illusion of romance, merely, or is it true thi 
in spite of the fact that the French, governmental 
speaking, have been out of old Vincennes — the very r 
gion of it — for over a hundred and fifty years, and th 
nearly all we know of the town of twenty thousand hi 
come into existence in the last fifty years, there sf 
exists in it, hovers over it, the atmosphere of old Franccft 
Do we see, always, what we would like to see, or is thei 
something in this matter of predisposition, the plantir 
of a seed, however small, which eventually results in 
tree of the parent stock? I was scarcely prepared i( 
believe that there was anything of old France about th 
town — it seemed quite too much to ask, and yet roHin. 
leisurely through these streets, it seemed to me that theii 
was a great deal of it. The houses, quite a number 
them, had that American French Colonial aspect whii. 
we have all come to associate with their forbears, tl 
palaces and decorative arts of the high Louis! Franc; 
the modifier of the flamboyant dreams of the Renai 
sancel France, the mother, really, of the classic styl 
of England! The cooler, more meditative and Purit;i| 
spirit took all that was best in the dreams and supe 
grand taste of the France of the Kings and Emperoij 
and gave us Heppelwhite and Sheraton, and tho;^ 
charming architectural fancies known as Georgian. Oj 
am I wrong? 

And here in Vincennes, in the homes at least, there wa 
something reminiscent of this latter, while in the pri 
cipal streets — Third and Second — and in the names q 
some of the others, there was a suggestion of such town 
or cities as Rouen and Amiens — a mere suggestion, pe^ 

440 



THE FERRY AT DECKER 441 

haps, some might insist, but definite enough to me. As 
a matter of fact, tucked away in this southern river re- 
gion of Indiana, it seemed very French, and I recalled 
now that my first and only other connection with it had 
been through a French woman, a girl protege of my 
mother, who had married (she was a wild, pagan crea- 
ture, as I can testify) the manager or captain of the prin- 
cipal fire station in the then city of twelve thousand. Be- 
tti^^fore her marriage, at Terre Haute, she had done sewing 
4for my mother, in our more prosperous days, and when 
f ijconditions grew so bad that my mother felt that she 
t'l'niust get out of Terre Haute, instead of going to Sullivan 
I direct (I do not think her original intention was to go 
stjto Sullivan at all) she wrote this French woman of her 
I'^^^troubles, and upon her invitation visited her there. For 
'fa period of six weeks, or longer, we lived in the apart- 
ti'ment which was a part of the fire captain's perquisites, and 
in I part of the central fire station itself — the rear half 
i ,of the second floor. There must have been some unim- 
th^ortant connection between this and the county jail or 
I'l :entral police station, or both, for in a building adjoin- 
iffng at the rear I remember there was a jail, and that I 
r 'jtould go back, if I chose, downstairs and out, and see 
liiliome of the incarcerated looking out through the bars. 
it was a pleasant enough place as such things go, and 
'Iiy mother must have had some idea of remaining in 
/incennes, for not long after we arrived my sister and 
uother and I were put in another Cathohc School, — the 
;j)ane of my youthful life. This did not last very long, 
lowever, for shortly thereafter we were taken out and 
■emoved to Sullivan. Eleven years later, at the time of 
fny mother's death in Chicago, this woman, who was 
t^jhen and there a dressmaker, came to cry over her coffin 
nd to declare my mother the best friend she ever had. 
My youthful impressions of Vincennes, sharp as they 
nay have been at the time, had by now become very 
ague. I remember that from the fire tower, where hung 
n alarm bell and to which we were occasionally per- 
litted to ascend, the straight flowing Wabash River was 



442 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

to be seen; also that northward, toward Sullivan, were 
Merom Bluffs, where pleasure seekers from Vincennes 
were accustomed to drive. My mother went once. Also, 
that certain tow headed and dark girls seemed very nu- 
merous about the fire station at night. Also that once, 
during our stay, there was a big fire, and that we all 
arose and went out to join the great throng watching it. 
Our host, the captain, was seen to mount a ladder and 
break in a window and disappear in a red glow, much 
to my mother's and my own horror. But he came back 
alive. 

In ambling about, I found the exact firehouse, enlarged 
and improved, "where it has always been," as one of the 
neighboring tradesmen told me — new automobile engines 
and trucks in it — and then I was ready to go. I had seen 
all I could hope to remember, even dimly. We hurried 
to a neighboring garage, took on a store of oil and gaso- 
line, and were off in the twilight and the moonlight, for 
Evansville. 

Uncertain is the outcome of all automobilists' plans 
forever and ever, as with all other plans. Although 
we had inquired and inquired, getting the exact way (and 
Franklin's conferences on these matters were always ex- 
tended and minute) we were soon safely on the wrong 
road. We had been told to make for a place called 
Decker, via a town called Purcell, but soon in the shades 
of a fast falling night we were scuttling up a cowpath, 
under dark and ghostly trees. 

"How would it do to call on some squirrel or chip- 
munk and pay our respects?" suggested Franklin. "They < 
appear to be about the only people living here." 

We decided to go back. 

Once more on a fairly good road again, a mile or so 
back, we met a charming milkmaid, with fine arms, pink 
cheeks, and two brimming buckets of milk. Modestly, 
she told us we were on the wrong road. 

"You should have kept the macadam road to Purcell. 
This goes to St. Francisville across the river. But if you 



THE FERRY AT DECKER 443 

go up here a mile or two and take the first road to your 
left, it will bring you to St. Thomas, and there's a road 
on from there to Decker. But it would be better if you 
went back." 

"Back? Never!" I said to Franklin, as the girl went 
on, and thinking of the miles we had come. "It's a fine 
night. Look at the moon." (There was an almost full 
moon showing a golden tip in the eastern sky.) "Soon 
it will be as bright as day. Let's ride on. We'll get to 
Evansville by morning, anyhow. It's only sixty miles or 
so." 

"Yes, if we could go straight," amended Bert, pessi- 
mistically. 

"Oh, we'll go straight enough. She says St. Thomas 
is only eight miles to our left." 

So on we went. The moon rose. Across flat meadows 
in the pale light, lamps in distant houses looked like ships 
at sea, sailing off a sandy coast. There were clumps of 
pines or poplars gracefully distributed about the land- 
scape. The air was moist, but so fragrant and warm! 
These were the bottom lands of the White and Wabash 
Rivers, quite marshy in places, and fifteen miles farther 
south we would have to cross the White River on a ferry. 

We sped on. The road became sandy and soft. Now 
and then it broke into muddy stretches where we had 
to go slow. From straggling teamsters we gathered char- 
acteristic and sometimes amusing directions. 

"Yuh go up here about four miles to Ed Peters' place. 
It's the big white store on the corner — yuh can't miss it. 
Then yuh turn to yer left about three miles, till yuh come 
to the school on the high ground there (a rise of about 
eight feet it was). Then yuh turn to yer right and go 
down through the marsh to the iron bridge, and that'll 
bring yer right into the Decker Road." 

We gathered this as we were leaving St. Thomas, a 
lonely Catholic outpost, with a church and sisters' school 
of some kind. 

On and on. Riding is delightful in such a country. 
In lovely cottages as we tore past I heard mellifluous 



444 'A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

voices singing in some archaic way. You could see 
lighted lamps on the family tables, — a man or woman 
or both sitting by reading. On doorsteps, in dooryards 
now and then were loungers, possibly indifferent to the 
mosquitoes. The moon cleared to a silvery perfection 
and lighted all the fields and trees. There were owl 
voices and bats. In Ed Peters' place a crowd of country 
bumpkins were disporting themselves. 

"Har, har, har! Whee-oh!" 

You should have heard the laughter. It was infec- 
tious. 

A man outside directed us further. We came to the 
school, the iron bridge in the marsh, and then by a wrong 
road away from Decider, but we found it finally. 

It was a railroad town. On the long steps of a very 
imposing country store, lighted by flaring oil lamps, a 
great crowd of country residents (all men) were gath- 
ered to see the train come in, — an event soon to happen, 
I gathered. They swam in a Vierge or Goyaesque haze, 
— a full hundred of them, their ivory faces picked out 
in spots by the uncertain light. We asked of one the 
road to Evansville, and he told us to go back over the 
bridge and south, or to our left, as we crossed the bridge. 

"The ferry hain't here. It may be as ye can't get 
across t'night. The river's runnin' purty high." 

"That would be a nice note, wouldn't it?" commented 
Bert. 

"Well, Decker looks interesting to me," observed 
Franklin. "What's the matter with Decker? I'd like to 
sketch that crowd anyhow." 

We went on down to the ferry to see. 

En route we encountered a perfectly horrible stretch 
of road — great, mucky ruts that almost stalled the car 
— and in the midst of it an oil well, or the flaring industry 
of driving one. There was a great towering well frame 
in the air, a plunger, a forge, an engine, and various 
flaring torches set about and men working. It was so 
attractive that, although up to this moment we had been 
worrying about the car, we got out and went over, leav- 







THE FERRY AT DECKER 



THE FERRY AT DECKER 445 

Ing it standing in inches and inches of mud. Watching 
the blaze of furnaces for sharpening drills and listening 
to the monotonous plunging of the drill, we sat about 
here for half an hour basking in the eerie effect of the 
torches in the moonlight and against the dark. wood. It 
was fascinating. 

A little later we came to the waterside and the alleged 
ferry. It was only a road that led straight into the 
river — a condition which caused Franklin to remark that 
they must expect us to drive under. At the shore was 
a bell on a post, with a rope attached. No sign indicated 
its import, but since far on the other side we could see 
lights, we pulled it vigorously. It clanged loud and long. 
Between us and the lights rolled a wide flood, smooth and 
yet swiftly moving, apparently. Small bits of things could 
be seen going by in the pale light. The moon on the 
water had the luster of an oyster shell. There was a 
faint haze or fog which prevented a clear reflection. 

But our bell brought no response. We stood here be- 
tween bushes and trees admiring the misty, pearly river, 
but we wanted to get on, too. On the other side was a 
town. You could hear laughing voices occasionally, and 
scraps of piano playing or a voice singing, but the im- 
mediate shore line was dark. I seized the rope again 
and clanged and clanged "like a house afire," Bert said. 

Still no response. 

"Maybe they don't run at night," suggested Bert. 

"He said the water might be too high," commented 
Franklin. "It looks simple enough." 

Once more I pulled the bell. 

Then after another drift of moments there was a faint 
sound as of scraping chains or oars, and after a few 
moments more, a low something began to outline itself 
in the mist. It" was a flat boat and it was coming, rigged 
to an overhead wire and propelled by the water. It was 
coming quite fast, I thought. Soon it was off shore and 
one of the two men aboard — an old man and a young 
one — was doing something with the rear chain, pulling 
the boat farther upstream, nearer the wire. 



446 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

"Git that end pole out of the way," called the older of 
the two men, the one nearer us, and then the long, flat 
dish scraped the shore and they were pushing it far in- 
land with poles to make it fast. 

"What's the matter? Couldn't you hear the bell?" I 
inquired jocundly. 

"Yes, I heard the bell, all right," replied the older 
man truculently. "This here boat ain't supposed to run 
nights anyhow in this here flood. Y'can't tell what'U 
happen, logs and drifts comin' down. We've lost three 
automobiles in her already as it is." 

I speculated nervously as to that while he grumbled 
and fussed. 

"Hook 'er up tight," he called to his assistant. "She 
might slip out yet." 

"But up at Decker," I added mischievously, "they said 
you ran all night." 

"They said! They said I Whadda they know about 
this here ferry? I'm runnin' this, I guess. Havin' to 
git out here nights, tar-erd (he was meaning tired) as 
I am, an' take this thing back an' forth. I'm gittin' sick 
on it. I hain't got to do it." 

"I know," observed Franklin, "but we're very anxious 
to get across tonight. We have to be in Evansville by 
morning anyhow." 

"Well, I don't know nothin' about that. All I know 
is everybody's in a all-fired hurry to git across." 

"Well, that's all right now, doctor," I soothed. 
"We'll fix this up on the other side. You just take us 
over like a good sort." 

The aroma of a tip seemed to soothe him a little. 

"Be keerful how you run that car," he commented 
to Bert. "One feller ran his car on an' up-ended this 
thing an' off he went. We never did get the machine 
out. She was carried on down stream." 

Bert manoeuvred the car very gingerly. Then we poled 
off in the moonlight, and I could see plainly that there 
was a flood. We were slow getting out to where the 
main current was, but once there its speed shocked me. 



THE FERRY AT DECKER 447 

A vast, sullen volume of water was pouring down — on 
and away into the Wabash, the Ohio, the Mississippi, 
the Gulf. I was thinking how wonderful water Is any- 
how — out of the unknown, into the unknown, like our- 
selves, it comes and goes. And here, like petty actors 
in a passing play, we were crossing under the moon — 
the water as much a passing actor as any of us. 

"Better pay out more at the stern there," called the 
old man to his helper. "She's pushin' her pretty hard." 

The water was fairly boiling along the upstream side. 

"At any minute now," he continued, "a bundle of drift 
or logs or weeds is like to come along and foul us, and 
then if that there wire gave way, where'd we be?" 

I felt a little uncomfortable at the thought, I confess 
— Franklin's good machine, his inability to swim, the 
eddying swiftness of this stream. 

Fortunately, at this rate, the center was soon passed 
and we began to near the other shore. The current drove 
us up into a deep-cut shallow inlet, where they poled 
the punt close to shore and fastened it. 

Then Bert had to make a swift run with the machine, 
for just beyond the end of the boat was a steep incline 
up which we all had to clamber. 

"Don't let 'er slip back on yer," he cautioned. "If 
yer do, she's like to go back in the water" . . . and Bert 
sent "her" snorting uphill. 

We paid the bill — fifty cents — (twentyfive of that be- 
ing tacked on as a penalty for routing him out "tar-erd 
as he was" and fifteen cents extra for disturbing observa- 
tions about drifts, lost automobiles, and the like). Then 
we bustled up and through an interesting, cleanly looking 
place called Hazleton (population twentyfive hundred) 
and so on toward Evansville, which we hoped surely to 
reach by midnight. 



CHAPTER LV 

A MINSTREL BROTHER 

But we didn't reach Evansville, for all our declaration 
and pretence of our need. A delightful run along a 
delightful road, overhung with trees (and now that we 
were out of the valley between the two rivers, cut be- 
tween high banks of tree shaded earth), brought us to 
Princeton, a town so bright and clean looking that we 
were persuaded, almost against our wishes, to pass the 
night here. Some towns have just so much personality. 
They speak to you of pleasant homes and pleasant peo- 
ple — a genial atmosphere. Here, as elsewhere, indeed, 
in all but the poorest of these small midwestern towns, 
the center of it was graced by the court house, a very pre- 
sentable building, and four brightly lighted business sides. 
The walks about the square were outlined, every fifty feet 
or less, by a five-lamp standard. The stores were large 
and clean and bright. A drug store we visited contained 
such an interesting array of postcards that I bought a 
dozen — pictures of great grain elevators, four or five 
of which we had seen on entering the town, sylvan scenes 
along the banks of the Patoka, a small lake or watering 
place called "Long Pond," and scenes along tree sheltered 
roads. I liked the spirit of these small towns, quite 
common everywhere today, which seeks out the charms 
of the local life and embodies them in colored prints, and 
I said so. 

Walk into any drug or book store of any up to date 
small town today, and you will find in a trice nearly 
every scene of importance and really learn the char- 
acter and charms of the vicinity. Thus at Conneaut, 
Ohio, but for the picture postcards which chronicled the 
fact, we would never have seen the giant cranes which 

448 



A MINSTREL BROTHER 449 

emptied steel cars like coalscuttles. Again, except for 
the picture postcards displayed, I would never have 
sensed the astonishing charms of Wilices-Barre, San- 
dusky, or even my native Terre Haute. The picture 
cards told all, in a group, of what there was to see. 

We discovered a most interesting and attractive quick 
lunch here, quite snowy and clean, with a bright, open 
grill at the back, and here, since we now were hungry 
again, we decided to eat. Franklin saw cantaloupes in 
the window and I announced that I had bought a picture 
card of a cantaloupe packing scene in a town called 
Cantaloupe, which, according to my ever ready map, was 
back on the road we had just come through. 

"They ought to be good around here," he commented, 
rather avidly, I thought. "Nice, fresh cantaloupe right 
out of the field." 

We entered. 

I did not know, really, how seriously Franklin craved 
fresh, ripe, cold muskmelon in hot weather until we 
got inside. 

"We'll have muskmelon, eh?" he observed eagerly. 

"All right. I'll divide one with you." 

"Oh, no," he returned, with the faintest rise in his 
inflection. "I'd like a whole one." 

"Delighted, Franklin," I replied. "On with the dance. 
Let muskmelon, etc." 

He went to the counter and persuaded the waiter maid- 
to set forth for him two of the very largest — they were 
like small watermelons — which he brought over. 

"These look like fine melons," he observed. 

"They're splendid," said the girl. "This is a melon 
country." 

A traveling salesman who was eating over at another 
table exclaimed, "I can vouch for that." 

Franklin and I began. They were delicious — fragrant, 
a luscious product of a rich soil. We ate in silence, and 
when his was consumed, he observed, eyeing me specu- 
latively, "I believe I could stand another one." 

"Franklin!" I exclaimed reproachfully. 



450 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

"Yes, I could," he insisted. "They're great, don't you 
think so?" 

"As good as ever I have eaten — better even." 

"That settles it. I'm going to have one more." 

He brought it over and ate it alone, while I sat and 
talked to him and marveled. Once more, when he was 
finished, he fixed me with his eye. 

"Well, now, how do you feel?" I inquired. 

"Fine. You know — you'll think it's funny — but I 
could eat another — a half anyhow." 

"Franklin!" I exclaimed. "This is too much. Two 
whole melons and now a third!" 

"Do you think it's too much?" 

There was a sort of childish naivete about the inquiry 
which moved me to laughter — and firmness. Franklin 
achieves this quite unconsciously, at times — a certain self- 
abnegating shyness. 

"I certainly do. Here it is after eleven. We are sup- 
posed to be up early and off — and here you sit eating 
muskmelons by the crate. This is shameful. Besides, 
you can get more tomorrow. We are in the land of 
the muskmelon." 

"Oh, all right," he consented, quite crestfallen. 

I did not realize at the time that I was actually stop- 
ping him, and before he had enough. It was a joke on 
my part. 

The next day was Wednesday, a bright, sunny day, and 
pleasantly cool. The sun streaming under my black 
shades at six and earlier awoke me, and I arose and 
surveyed the small town, as much of It as I could see 
from my window and through encircling trees. It was as 
clean and homey and pleasing as it had seemed the night 
before. By now Franklin, hearing me stirring, was up too, 
and we awakened Bert, who was still asleep. If we were 
to get to Evansville and on to Indianapolis and Carmel 
again in this one day, it would have to be a long and 
speedy run, but even now I began to doubt whether we 
should make it. Evansville was too interesting to me, 
as one of my home towns. It was all of fifty miles away 



A MINSTREL BROTHER 451 

as we would ride, and after that would come a cross- 
country run of one hundred and fortyfive miles as the 
crow flies, or counting the twists and turns we would 
make, say one hundred and seventyfive miles — a scant 
calculation. There were, as my map showed, at least 
seven counties to cross on returning. In our path lay 
French Lick and West Baden — the advertised Carlsbads 
of America. North of that would be Bedford, the home 
of the world's supply of Indiana limestone, and beyond 
it Bloomington, the seat of the State University, where 
I had spent one dreamy, lackadaisical year. After that 
a run of at least sixtyfive miles straight, let alone wind- 
ing, before we could enter Carmel. 

"It can't be done, Franklin," I argued, as we dressed. 
"You said three days, but it will be four at the earliest, 
if not five. I want to see a little of Evansville and 
Bloomington." 

"Well, if we have decent roads, we can come pretty 
near doing it," he insisted. "Certainly we can get home 
by tomorrow night. I ought to. I have a lot of things 
to do in town Friday." 

"Well, you're the doctor," I agreed, "so long as I see 
what I want to see." 

We bustled downstairs, agreeing to breakfast in 
Evansville. It was six thirty. Those favored souls who 
enjoy rising early in the morning and looking after their 
flowers were abroad, admiring, pinching, cutting, water- 
ing. It was a cheering spectacle. I respect all people 
who love flowers. It seems to me one of the preliminary, 
initiative steps in a love and understanding of beauty. 
Evansville came nearer at a surprising rate. I began 
to brush up my local geography and list in my mind the 
things I must see — the houses in which we had lived, the 
church and school which I was made to attend, the Ohio 
River, at the foot of Main Street — where once in Janu- 
ary, playing with some boys, I fell into the river, knocked 
off a floating gangway, and came desperately near being 
swept away by the ice. Then I must see Blount's Plow 
Works, and the chair factory of Messrs. Nienaber and 



452 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

Fitton, where my brother Al worked for a time, and 
where of a Saturday I often went to help him. And the 
Evansville Ironstone Pottery Company must be found, 
too, at whose low windows I was wont to stand and de- 
lightedly watch the men form cups, plates, pitchers, etc., 
out of grey, wet clay. This seemed to me the most won- 
derful manufacturing process of all those witnessed by 
me in my youth. It was so gracefully and delicately ac- 
complished. There was only one other thing that com- 
pared in interest, and that was the heating and melting 
of iron in great furnaces in an enormous iron foundry 
on the same street with the Catholic School which I 
used to pass every day and where the pouring of the 
glistening metal into cauldrons and the pouring of that 
into wondrously intricate moulds of sand, whereby were 
shaped iron fences, gratings, culvert tops, had always 
been of the intensest interest to me. 

The essential interest of Evansville to me, however, 
was that at that particular time in my youth, and just 
at the time when seemingly things had reached a crisis 
for my mother — whose moods were invariably my own 
— Evansville had appeared liice a splendid new chapter 
in our lives, and resolved all of our difficulties, for the 
time being, into nothing. How was this done? Well, 
as I have indicated somewhere, I believe, our oldest 
brother, the oldest living member of the family of chil- 
dren, had come to my mother's rescue in the nick of time. 
By now he was a successful, though up to this time wan- 
dering, minstrel man — an "end man," no less. But, more 
recently still, he had secured a position with a permanent 
or stock minstrel company located in the Evansville Opera 
House, where he was honored with the position of inter- 
locutor and end man, as the mood prompted him, and 
where nightly he was supposed to execute a humorous 
monologue. Incidentally, he was singing his own songs. 
Also, incidentally he was conducting a humorous column 
in a local paper, the Evansville Argus. The fences and 
billboards of the city attested to his comparative popu- 



A MINSTREL BROTHER 453 

larity, for a large red and yellow single sheet print of 
his face was conspicuously displayed in many windows. 

His life so far had proved a charming version of the 
prodigal son. As a boy of seventeen, for errors which 
need not be recounted here, he was driven out of the 
home. As a man of twentyseven (or boy) he had now 
returned (the winter previous to our moving) adorned 
with a fur coat, a high silk hat, a gold-headed cane. 

My mother cried on his shoulder and he on hers. He 
really loved her so tenderly, so unwaveringly, that this in 
Itself constituted a fine romance. At once he promised to 
solve all her difficulties. She must come out of this. He 
was going to Evansville now. There is a bit of private 
history which should be Included here, but which I do 
not wish to relate, at present. The result was that 

thereafter a weekly letter containing a few dollars three 

or four— arrived every Monday. (How often have I 
gone to the postoffice to get it!) Then there was 
some talk of a small house he was going to rent, and 
of the fact that we were soon to move. Then one 
summer day we did go, and I recall so well how, ar- 
riving in Evansville at about nine o'clock at night (my 
mother and we three youngest), we were met at the sta- 
tion by the same smiling, happy brother, and taken to 
the house at 1413 East Franklin Street; where on seeing 
her new home and its rather comfortable equipment, my 
mother stood in the doorway and cried — and he with 
her. I cannot say more than that. It all seems too won- 
derful — too beautiful, even now. 



CHAPTER LVI 

EVANSVILLE 

But I cannot possibly hope to convey the delicious 
sting life had in it for me at this time as a spectacle, a 
dream, something in which to bathe and be enfolded, as 
only youth and love know life. Not Evansville alone but 
life itself was beautiful — the sky, the trees, the sun, the 
visible scene. People hurrying to and fro or idling in 
the shade, the sound of church bells, of whistles, a wide 
stretch of common. Getting up in the morning, going 
to bed at night. The stars, the winds, hunger, thirst, 
the joy of playing or of idly musing. 

In Evansville I was just beginning to come out of the 
dream period which held for me between the years of 
seven and eleven. The significance of necessity and effort 
were for the first time beginning to suggest themselves. 
Still, I was not awake, only vaguely disturbed at times, 
like a silky, shimmery sea, faintly touched by vagrom 
winds. The gales and storms were to come fast enough. 
I was really not old enough to understand all or even any 
of the troublesome conditions affecting our family. Like 
my companionable brother and sister, I was too young, 
undaunted, hopeful. Sometimes, in my dreams, a faint 
suggestion of my mood at the time comes back, and then 
I know how I have changed — the very chemistry of me. 
I do not respond now as I did then, or at any rate, I 
think not. 

As we neared the city we could see the ground elevating 
itself in the distance, and soon we were riding along a 
ridge or elevated highroad, suggestively alive with traffic 
and dotted with houses. 

Evansville is a southern city, in spite of the fact that 

454 



EVANSVILLE 455 

it is Indiana, and has all the characteristic marks of a 
southern city — a hot, drowsy, almost enervating summer, 
an early spring, a mild winter, a long, agreeable autumn. 
Snow falls but rarely and does not endure long. Darkies 
abound, whole sections of them, and work on the levee, 
the railroad, and at scores of tasks given over to whites 
in the north. You see them ambling about carrying pack- 
ages, washing windows, driving trucks and autos, waiting 
on table. It is as though the extreme south had reached 
up and just touched this projecting section of Indiana. 

Again, it is a German city, strangely enough, a city to 
which thousands of the best type of German have mi- 
grated. Despite the fact that Vincennes and Terre Haute 
were originally French, and then English, except for 
small sections through here, the German seems to pre- 
dominate. We saw many German farmers, the Ameri- 
canized type, coming up from Terre Haute, and here in 
Evansville German names abounded. It was as true of 
my days as a boy here as it is now — even more so, I 
believe. There are a number of purely German Catholic 
or Lutheran churches controlled by Bavarian priests or 
ministers. 

Again it is a distinctly river type of town, with that 
floating population of river squatters — you can always 
tell them — drifting about. I saw a dozen in the little 
while I was there, river nomads or gypsies bustling about, 
dark, sallow, small, rugged. I have seen them at St. 
Louis, at Memphis, in Savannah, where the boats come 
up from the sea and down from Augusta. I can always 
tell them. 

Once inside the city, I was interested to note that most 
cities, like people, retain their characteristics perma- 
nently. Thus in my day, Evansville was already noted 
as a furniture manufacturing city. Plainly it was so still. 
In half a dozen blocks we passed as many large furniture 
companies, all their windows open and the whir and drone 
of their wheels and saws and planes pouring forth a 
happy melody. Again, it was already at that time es- 
tablishing a reputation for the manufacture of cheap pot- 



456 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

tery; and here, to our left, was a pottery crowded in 
among other things, not large, but still a pottery. If 
there was one, we might expect others. 

At the edge of the town, making its way through a 
notable gorge, was Pigeon Creek, a stream in which Ed, 
Al and I had often bathed and fished, and to the shore 
of which we had been led, on divers occasions, by a stout 
German Catholic priest, or three or four of them, giving 
an annual or semiannual picnic. The fact that the land 
rises at this section was probably what attracted the first 
settlers here, and gives to this creek and the heart of the 
city a picturesque and somewhat differentiated character. 

Not far from the center of the city, in a region which 
I once considered very remote, we passed the double- 
steepled church of St. Anthony, an institution which, be- 
cause I was taken to its dedication by my father, I had 
retained in memory as something imposing. It was not 
at all — a rather commonplace church in red brick and 
white stone, such as any carpenter and builder of Teu- 
tonic extraction might design and execute. A little far- 
ther on, facing my much beloved Vine Street, where stood 
Holy Trinity Catholic Church and School, and along 
which, morning and evening, I used to walk, I discovered 
the Vanderburg County Court House, filling a space of 
ground which had once been our public school play- 
ground. It was very large, very florate, and very like 
every other court house in America. 

Friends, why is it that American architects can design 
nothing different — or is it that our splendidly free and 
unconventional people will not permit them? I some- 
times feel that there could not exist a more dull witted 
nation architecturally than we are. In so far as intel- 
ligence is supposed to manifest itself in the matter of 
taste, we give no evidence of having any — positively 
none. Our ratiocinations are of the flock, herd or school 
variety. We run with the pack. Some mountebank 
Simon in art, literature, politics, architecture, cries 
"thumbs up," and up goes every blessed thumb from 
the Atlantic to the Pacific. Then some other pseudo- 



EVANSVILLE 457 

ratiocinating ass calls "thumbs clown," and down go 
all thumbs — not a few, but all. Let a shyster moralist 
cry that Shakespeare is immoral and his plays are at once 
barred from all the schools of a dozen states. Let a 
quack nostrum peddling zany declare that the young must 
not be contaminated, and out go all the works of Mon- 
tagne, Ibsen, Hauptmann, Balzac, on the ground, for- 
sooth, that they will injure the young. Save the sixteen 
year old girl, if you must make mushheads and loons, 
absolute naturals, of every citizen from ocean to ocean! 

I despair, really. I call for water and wash my hands. 
A land with such tendencies can scarcely be saved, unless 
it be by disaster. We need to be tried by fire or born 
again. We do not grasp the first principles of intellec- 
tual progress. 

But our breakfast! Our breakfast! Before getting it 
I had to take Franklin to view the Ohio River from 
Water Street (I do believe they have changed the name 
to Riverside Drive, since New York has one) for I could 
not rest until he had seen one of the most striking Ameri- 
can river scenes of which I know anything. I know how 
the Hudson joins the ocean at New York, the Missouri 
the Mississippi at St. Louis, the Moselle the Rhine, at 
Coblenz, the New and Big Kanawha in the picturesque 
mountains of West Virginia, and the Alleghany the Mo- 
nongahela to make the Ohio in Pittsburg — but this sweep 
of the Ohio, coming up from the South and turning im- 
mediately south again in a mighty elbow which pushes at 
the low hill on which the city stands, is tremendous. You 
know this is a mighty river, bearing the muddy waters of 
half a continent, by merely looking at it. It speaks for 
itself. 

Standing on this fronting street of this purely commer- 
cial city, whose sloping levee sinks to the water's edge, 
you see it coming, miles and miles away, this vast body 
of water; and turning, you see it disappeai-ing around a 
lowland, over whose few weak and yellow trees the water 
frequently passes. In high water, whole towns and val- 
leys fall before it. Houses and cabins go by on its flood. 



458 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

On it ride those picturesque sternwheelers, relics of an 
older order of navigation, and here on this bright August 
morning were several anchored at our feet. They were 
fastened to floating wharves, chained to the shore. On 
the long, downward slope of cobble stones were lying 
boxes and bales, the evidence of a river traffic that no 
inimical railroad management can utterly kill. A river 
capable of bearing almost all the slow freight of a half 
score of states is left to distribute the minor shipments of 
perhaps four or five. Franklin and Bert were struck with 
it, which pleased me greatly, for it is pleasant to bring 
another to a great view. They exclaimed over its scope 
and beauty. 

Then we went looking for a restaurant. Although the 
killing of game was still out of season, we found one 
where broiled squirrels were being offered for the humble 
sum of sixty cents. We feasted. Our conservative chauf- 
feur declared, as we sat down, that he did not care for 
anything much, and then ordered a steak, three eggs, a 
pot of coffee, a bowl of wheatena, muffins and hashed 
brown potatoes, topped off with a light plate of waffles 
and maple syrup. 

"Bert," exclaimed Franklin, "you really aren't as 
Strong as you might be this morning. You tnust look 
after yourself." 

He scarcely heard. Lost in a sea of provender, he 
toiled on, an honest driver worthy of his hire. 

And here it was that the question of muskmelons once 
more arose — this time to plague me — melons which, as 
we have seen, were as plentiful as manna in the desert. 

"Now," Franklin observed with unction as we sat 
down, "I'm going to have another muskmelon." 

"Right," I congratulated him, with the air of a gener- 
ous host, "now's the time." 

"Give me a nice large, cold muskmelon," he observed 
to the darky who now appeared, napkin on arm. 

"Sorry, boss," replied that worthy, "we ain't got no 
mushmelers dis mawnin. Dey ain't none to be had in de 
maaket." 







THE OHIO AT EVANSVILLE 



EVANSVILLE 459 

"What's that?" I demanded, looking up and getting 
nervous, for we were in the very best restaurant the city 
afforded. "No muskmelons! What are you talking 
about? We saw fields of them — miles of them — between 
here and Vincennes and Sullivan." 

"Da's right, boss. Da's where dey grows. You see 
'um dere all right. But dey don't alius bring 'urn down 
here. Dis ain't no maaket. Dey go noth and east — to 
New Yawk and Chicago. Da's what it is." 

"You mean to say you can't get me a single melon?" 
queried Franklin feebly, a distinct note of reproach in his 
voice. He even glanced my way. 

"Sorry, boss. If dey wuz to be had, we'd have 'um. 
Yessir — dis is de place. We cain't git 'um — da's it." 

Franklin turned upon me coldly. 

"That's what comes of not eating all that I wanted to 
when I wanted to. Hang it all." 

"Franklin," I said. "I am stricken to the earth. I 
crawl before you. Here is dust and here are ashes." I 
gesticulated with my arms. "If I had thought for one 
moment " 

"And all those fine melons up there T' 

"I agree," I said. 

He buried his face in the bill of fare and paid no at- 
tention to me. Only Bert's declining state of health re- 
stored him, eventually, and we left quite cheerful. 

Only a block or two from our restaurant was the St. 
George Hotel, my brother's resort, unchanged and as 
old fashioned as ever, white, with green lattices, rocking- 
chairs out in front, an airy, restful, summery look about 
it. How, once upon a time, he loved to disport himself 
here with all the smart idlers of the town! I can see him 
yet, clothed to perfection, happy in his youth, health and 
new found honors, such as they were. Then came Holy 
Trinity (church and school), at Third and Vine, an 
absolutely unchanged institution. It had shrunk and lost 
quality, as had everything else nearly with which I had 
been connected. The school fence, the principal's red 



46o A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

brick house at the back (how I used to dread it), the 
church next door, with the rear passage by which, when 
we were extra good, we went to receive colored picture 
cards of the saints or Jesus or Mary, and when we were 
bad — to be warned by the priest. 

The latter adventure was terrible. It had never be- 
fallen me, but other boys had experienced it. 

I cannot possibly convey to you, I fear, how very defi- 
nitely this particular school and church impressed me at 
the time. Although I had started in several schools, this 
was really my first. By this time my mother was begin- 
ning to doubt the efficacy of Catholic schools in general 
(how they would have condemned her for that!), but as 
yet she was not quite positive enough in her own mind to 
insist on a change. When I found it was another Cath- 
olic school I was to attend I was very downhearted. I 
was terrorized by the curriculum, the admixture of priests, 
nuns and one bewhiskered Herr Professor, very young 
and as he seemed to me very terrible, a veritable ogre, 
who ruled the principal school room here. Really he was 
a most amazing person in his way. He had blazing eyes, 
heavy black eyebrows, black hair, a full black beard, and 
he walked with a dynamic stride which, as it seemed to 
me, was sufficient to shake the earth. He controlled the 
principal or highest grade, and I, now eleven years of age 
and with a tendency to read a little of everything, was 
deemed fit to be put there — why I never can tell. 

Oh, those two terrible years I The best I can say for 
them or the worst is this, that outside the school and at 
home was heaven; inside was hell. This young professor 
had the German idea of stern, vigorous control; in which 
he was supported by the parish rector. He whipped boys 
vigorously, and possibly for the type of youth under him 
this was just the thing. They were unquestionably a 
tough, thick-bottomed lot, and they made my life a night- 
mare into the bargain. It seems to me now as I look 
back on it that I learned nothing at all, not even catechism. 
The school rooms were always being prowled over by 
the rector and various nuns and sisters superior, whose 



EVANSVILLE 461 

sole concern seemed to be that we should learn our cate- 
chism and be "graduated," at twelve years of age, 
whether we knew anything or not. Think of it! I am 
not grossly lying or exaggerating about the Catholic 
Church and its methods. I am telling you what I felt, 
saw, endured. 

During these two years, as it seems to me, I never 
learned anything about anything. There was a "Bible 
history" there which entertained me so much that I read 
in it constantly, to the neglect of nearly everything else; 
and some of the boys brought "Diamond Dick" or its 
that day equivalent, and these we read under the seats, I 
among others, though I liked my "Bible history" and my 
geography (such as it was) better. On several occasions 
I had my hands severely marked by a ruler, wielded by 
the Herr Professor Falk — great red welts put across 
both my palms, because I whispered or laughed or did not 
pay attention. And once he pulled my ear so hard that I 
cried. He had a "habit" (shall I call it) of striking dis- 
orderly boys across the cheek so hard and so fiercely that 
their faces blazed for an hour; or of seizing them, laying 
them over a bench and beating them with a short rawhide 
whip. Once I saw a boy whom he intended so to whip 
turn on him, strike him across the face, and run and jump 
out the window to the ground, say seven feet below. To 
me, at that time, with my viewpoint on life, it was dread- 
ful. My heart used to beat so I thought I would faint, 
and I lived in constant dread lest I be seized and handled 
in the same way. Whenever we met him or the Catholic 
priest or any other dignitary connected with the school 
or church we were supposed (compelled is the right word) 
to take off our hats. And if it was a priest we had to 
say, in German, "praised be Jesus Christ," to which he 
would reply "Amen." When school was over, at four 
p. M., I would creep away, haunted by the thought that 
on the morrow I would have to return. 

Next to the school was the Church, and this also had 
been more or less of a torture to me, though not quite 
so much so. Here the Reverend Anton Dudenhausen (I 



462 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

am not inventing his name) was supreme, and here I 
made my first confession (no real sins at all, really — 
fibbing to my mother was the worst), and received my 
first communion. It was not a very striking church, but 
then with its gilt altars, the candles, the stained glass win- 
dows, the statues and stations of the cross, it seemed quite 
wonderful — only I was always afraid of it all I It seemed 
alien to the soul of me. 

Entering it this day I found it just the same, not quite 
as large as I had fancied but still of good size as such 
churches go. 

I recalled now with a kind of half pleasure, half pain, 
all the important functions that went on in this church, 
the celebrations of Easter, Christmas (the whole Christ- 
child manger fable set forth life size and surrounded by 
candles). Palm Sunday, Good (or Black) Friday, when 
everything in the church was draped in black, the forty 
days of Lent, and the masses, high or low, sung on every 
great saint's day or when bishops or missionaries (the 
latter to billysunday us) or other dignitaries came to visit 
us. My father was always much wrought up about these 
things when he was at home and the church always seemed 
to blaze with banners, candles and crowds of acolytes in 
red and white or visiting priests in white and gold. I 
always felt as though heaven must be an amazing and dif- 
ficult place to reach if so much fuss over the mere trying 
for it here was necessary. 

Then, in addition, there were the collections, commun- 
ions, church fairs, picnics, raffles — a long line of amazing 
events, the chief importance of which was, as it seemed 
to me, the getting of money for the church. Certainly 
the Catholics know how to keep their communicants busy, 
and even worried. My recollection of school and church 
life here is one confused jumble of masses, funerals, pro- 
cessions, lessons in catechism, the fierce beating of recal- 
citrant pupils, instructions preparatory to my first confes- 
sion and communion, the meeting of huge dull sodalities 
or church societies with endless banners and emblems — 



EVANSVILLE 463 

(the men a poor type of workingmen) — and then march- 
ing off somewhere to funerals, picnics and the like out of 
the school or church yard. 

Inside (and these were partly what I was coming to 
see today) were the confessional, where I once told my 
sins to the Reverend Anton, and the altar rail and the 
altar, where once I had been received in Holy Communion 
and was confirmed by the Bishop, sitting on a high throne 
and arrayed in golden canonicals of the church. I can 
see him now — a pale, severe German, with a fine nose and 
hard blue eyes. I can feel his cool fingers anointing my 
forehead. Think of the influence of such formulas and 
all gorgeous flummery on the average mind! Is it any 
wonder that so many succumb permanently to theories 
and isms so gloriously arrayed? The wonder to me is 
that any child should ever be able to throw off the op- 
pressive weight — the binding chains thus riveted on him. 
Today, because it was so near September, they were 
cleaning the schoolrooms and preparing them for a new 
batch of victims. Think of the dull functioning of dogma, 
century after century, age after age. How many mil- 
lions and billions have been led — shunted along dogmatic 
runways from the dark into the dark again. They do not 
fell them with an axe as at the stockyards, nor open their 
veins with a knife as befalls the squealing swine, but they 
fell and bleed them just the same. I am not ranting 
against Catholicism alone. As much may be said of Mo- 
hammedanism, Confucianism, Shintoism, Brahmanism, 
Buddhism — the Methodist, Presbyterian, Baptist yokes. 
It is possible that for the latter it may be said that the 
chains are not so difficult to break. I don't know. But 
here they come, endless billions; and at the gates dogma, 
ignorance, vice, cruelty seize them and clamp this or that 
band about their brains or their feet. Then hobbled, or 
hamstrung, they are turned loose, to think, to grow if 
possible. As well ask of a eunuch to procreate, or of an 
ox to charge. The incentive to discover is gone. 

Says the dogmatist, "See, this is the manner of it. If 



464 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

you dare to think otherwise, you are damned. Your soul 
will grill in hell — and here is the nature of that hell." 

Poor life ! I wonder that ever an Athens came to pass 
or a Rome arose, to have so glorious a falll 



CHAPTER LVII 

THE BACKWOODS OF INDIANA 

Stopping to look at the old school door I went in. I 
recalled how, once upon a time, when we were first start- 
ing to school here, we tried to induce Ed to enter, he being 
the youngest and very shy as to education. But he refused 
to go and ran back home. The next day my sister Sylvia 
and I and Tillie took him, but at the gate he once more 
balked and refused to enter. It was a dreadful situation, 
for already we others had found the discipline here to 
be very stern. Perhaps it was Ed's subconscious realiza- 
tion of what was about to be done to his soul that terrified 
him. At any rate, when pressed to come he cried and 
even screamed, making such an uproar that that same 
Herr Professor Ludvvig Falk, ogreific soul that he was, 
came rushing out, grabbed him, and carried him, squall- 
ing, within. For a time he was not to be dealt with even 
there, but finding eventually that no one harmed him, 
he sat down and from that day to the time he left, two 
years later, learned nothing at all, not even his catechism 
— for which same I am truly grateful. But the formalism 
of the church caught him, its gold and colors and thun- 
derings as to hell, and now he is as good a Catholic as 
any and as fearful of terrific fires. 

Once inside, in the same room in which I used to sit 
and fear for my life and learned nothing, I encountered a 
black-garbed sister, her beads dangling at her waist, the 
same kind that used to overawe and terrify me in my 
youth. Because she looked at me curiously I bowed and 
then explained: "Once I went to school here — over 
thirty years ago." (I could see she assumed I was still 
a good Catholic.) I went on: "I sat in this seat here. 
It was the third row from the wall, about six seats back. 

465 



466 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

A Mr. Falk was my teacher here then, and a Father 
Dudenhausen the pastor." 

"Yes," she said simply, "I have heard of Mr. Falk — 
but he has not been here for years. He left many years 
ago. Father Dudenhausen died fifteen years ago." 

"Yes, so I heard," I replied, "and Father Livermann 
— do you know of him?" 

"No, I never heard of him, but if you will go to the 
pastor in the house back of the church, he can tell you. 
He would be pleased to see someone who had been here so 
long ago." 

I smiled. I was only fortyfour, but how old I really 
was, after all. 

Then Franklin came in with his camera. 

"Do you mind if we take a picture of it?" I asked. 

"Not at all," she replied. "It would be nice." 

"How would you like to sit at the desk there? I have 
sat in rooms where a sister was my teacher." 

"Oh, I think I'd better not," she replied. "I'm not 
sure if it's permissible. I " 

Just then another, an older, nun came in, and she put 
the matter to her in soft whispers. 

She was dying to do it. I could see that. 

"Well, the rules," I heard the other say aloud. 

There was more whispering, and then she mounted the 
platform and turned her head sidewise so that her bonnet 
concealed her face. Franklin snapped her. 

"Would you like a copy of it, if it turns out well?" I 
inquired. 

"Oh, it would please me very much." 

"And your name?" 

"Sister Mary Caroline — 316 Vine Street." 

I took one last look and went out. 

Outside was the yard in which we had always played. 
As an eleven and twelve-year-old boy, this had seemed a 
dreadful place to me — one of brawls and arguments. I 
was not a fighter nor tough enough physically to share in 
the rough sports that went on here — leap frog, snap the 
whip, and bean bag. I did, but I was always getting 



THE BACKWOODS OF INDIANA 467 

the worst of it and in addition, for some unaccountable 
reason, I was always finding myself involved in fights. 
Suddenly, out of a clear sky, without my having said a 
word to anybody, I would be the object of some bucky 
little American's or German-American's rage or opposi- 
tion — a fist would be shaken in my face. I would be told 
to "wait till after school." After school a crowd would 
gather. I would be led, as it were, like a Iamb to the 
slaughter. The crowd would divide into "sides." I 
would be urged to take off my coat and "go for him." 
But I was never much on the go. Somehow I did not 
know how to fight; even when at times I thought I ought 
to, or might win. A chance blow once won me a victory 
and great applause. I knocked my opponent flat — and all 
the fight out of him apparently — but quite by accident. I 
hadn't intended to at all. At other times I received un- 
deserved beatings, which left me wondering what I had 
done and why life was so fierce. It made me shy of other 
boys. I kept out of trouble by keeping away from them, 
wandering about by myself and rejoicing in the beauty 
of life as a whole — its splendid, spectacular reality. 

Inside the Church was nothing to disturb me or cause 
me to alter my point of view. It was just the same. 
There was the Reverend Anton Dudenhausen's confes- 
sional, front, left; and here were all the altars, statues, 
stations, windows, just as I had left them. I looked up 
at the organ loft where I had pumped air for the organ, 
weekdays and Sundays. It was apparently as I had left 
it. Kind heaven, I exclaimed to myself, standing in here, 
what a farce life is anyhow. Here is this same Church, 
from the errors and terrors of which I managed by such 
hard straits of thought to escape, and here is a city and a 
school pouring more and more victims into its jaws and 
maw year after year, year after year! Supposing one 
does escape? Think of all the others ! And if this were 
the middle ages I would not even dare write this. They 
would burn me at the stake. As it is, if any attention is 
paid to me at all I will be denounced as a liar, a maligner, 
a person with a diseased brain, as one of my dear rela- 



468 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

tives (Catholic of course) condescended to remark. Yet 
at my elbow as I write stands the Encyclopedia Britan- 
nica and Van Ranke's "History of The Papacy," and a 
life of Torquemada, to say nothing of scores of volumes 
demolishing the folly of religious dogma completely— 

and yet and yet — the poor victims of such unbelievable 

tommyrot as this would be among the first to destroy me 
and these things — the very first. 

A little way down Vine Street from the school was the 
old foundry, now enlarged and doing a good business in 
old metal melting and recasting. We turned into Main, 
where it joined Vine, and there a block away was Blounts 
Iron Works unchanged. Thirtythree years had not 
made a particle of difference. The walls were as red and 
dusty, the noise as great. I went along the windows, look- 
ing in, and so interesting were the processes that Franklin 
joined me. In exactly the same positions, at the same 
windows, were seemingly the same men at the exact ma- 
chines, heating, welding, shaping and grinding shares. It 
was astonishing. I felt young for the moment. At these 
windows, with my books under my arm, I had always 
lingered as long as I dared, only I recalled now that my 
eyes then came just above the window sills, whereas now 
the sills touched my middle chest. It was almost too 
good to be true. 

And there, up Main Street, quite plainly was the rail- 
road station we entered the night we came from Sullivan, 
and whence we departed two years later for Chicago and 
Warsaw — only it had been rebuilt. It was a newer, a 
grander affair— a Union Station, no less. Then we had 
slipped in, my mother and her helpless brood, and were 
met by Paul and put on a little one horse street car which 
had no conductor at the rear but only a small step, and in 
which, after depositing coins in a case where a light was, 
we rode a few blocks to Franklin Street. I recalled the 
night, the stars, the clang of summer engine bells, the 
city's confusing lights. It seemed so wonderful, this city; 
after Sullivan, so great. It had forty or fifty thousand 
people then (seventyfive thousand today). On the train, 



- ^ 



}k^% • ^^ 




,^^ 

•^^^m 



A BEAUTIFUL TREE ON A VILE ROAD 

Warwick County. Indiana 



THE BACKWOODS OF INDIANA 469 

as we came In, it seemed as if we were coming into fairy- 
land. 

"Mister," I said to a passing Southern water type, a 
small, gypsyish, swarthy little man, "can you tell us where 
Franklin Street is?" 

"Why, sweetheart, right they it is — right they at the 
conoh." 

The eyes poured forth a volume of gentle sunny hu- 
mor. I smiled back. It was like being handed a bouquet 
of roses. 

We turned into Franklin Street and rode such a little 
way — two blocks say. The house was easy to identify, 
even though the number had now been made 141 5. It 
was now crowded in between a long row of brick and 
frame houses, of better construction, and the neighbor- 
hood had changed entirely in physical appearance though 
not in atmosphere. Formerly, save for our house, all 
was open common here. You could see from our house 
to the station at which we had arrived — from our house 
to the interesting potteries which I still hoped to find, east 
or toward the country. You could see north to the woods 
and an outlying Catholic Orphan Asylum. 

Now all that was changed. It was all filled with 
houses. Streets that in my time had not even been platted 
now ran east and west and north and south. Our large 
yard and barn were gone. The house had no lawn at all, 
or just a tiny scrap in front. The fine commons at the 
back where all the neighborhood boys gathered to play 
ball, circus, top, marbles, was solidly built over with 
houses. I remembered how I used to run, kicking my bare 
toes in clover blooms in the summer. Once a bee stung 
me and I sat down and cried; then getting no aid, I made 
a paste of mud and saliva and held that on — instructions 
from big Ed Fisher, one of our neighborhood gang. I 
recalled how Ed and I played one old cat here with Harry 
Trochee, the g>'psy trader's son, up the street, and how 
we both hated to have to run up the street to Main Street 
to the grocer's or butcher's for anything. Here I could 
stand and see the steeple of Holy Trinity, clear across the 



470 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

city at Third and Pine, and hear the Angelus tolled, morn- 
ing, noon and night. It was beautiful to me — I have 
often paused to listen — and to feel. Across the common 
of a Saturday I have wandered to the potteries to look in 
at the windows at so many interesting things that were 
being made. 

"Shall we stop?" asked Franklin, as we neared the 
door. 

"Please don't. I don't want to go in." 

Some little children were playing on our small front 
porch. 

And next came the potteries themselves, over in the 
exact region where they should have been, but now swol- 
len to enormous proportions. The buildings extended for 
blocks. Hundreds, if not thousands, of men and women 
must have been at work here. You could see them at all 
the windows, turning cups, saucers, plates, bowls, pitchers, 
tureens — thousands in a day. The size and the swing of 
it all was like a song. We got out and wandered about 
up and down the low red walls, looking at windows and 
doors, seeing the thousands upon thousands of bits of 
clay being shaped into the forms which they retain for a 
little while only to be returned to their native nothingness 
again. So may we be shaped and cast back broken — to 
be used some day for something else. 

"The methods have changed," said one man, talking 
to me through a window. "Twenty years ago a lot of the 
work was still done by hand, but now we do it all by ma- 
chinery. We have forms like this" — and he held up one. 
"You see we put just so much clay in and press this down 
and that makes the exact thickness. It can't be more or 
less. I make a hundred and twenty plates an hour." 

He made twenty while we looked on. 

Another man, at the next window, was putting handles 
on cups. 

After this there was nothing of interest to see, so we 
consulted the map and decided that our best plan was to 
go first to Boonville in Warwick County, the next county 
east; then northeast to Huntingberg and Jasper in Dubois 



THE BACKWOODS OF INDIANA 471 

County, and then still northeast through Kellerville and 
Norton into Orange County, and so reach French Lick 
and West Baden. 

Neither of us had ever been there. It was of some 
slight interest to me as being famous — a great cure and 
the quondam resort of my brother Paul, who was fond of 
places of this kind. Indeed, he was a kind of modern 
Falstaff, roystering with drinkers and women and having 
a gay time of it wherever he was — a vigorous animal soul, 
with a world of sentiment and a capacity for living which 
was the admiration and the marvel of all beholders. 

So we were off. 

In so far as this part of the trip was concerned, I can 
truthfully say the attraction was off. There was still 
Bloomington, my one year university town, but beside 
Warsaw and Terre Haute and Sullivan and Evansville — 
how it paled! Chicago was really of much more interest 
to me, the Chicago that I visited between Evansville and 
Warsaw, but this trip did not include that. Besides, I 
had been to Chicago so often since. 

We followed hot, wet bottom lands to Boonville, a 
poorer town even than Sullivan, with unpaved streets and 
a skimpy county fair not to be compared with the one of 
Knox County, in which Vincennes was situated. Then we 
struck northeast through a region where the roads were 
so bad that it seemed we should never come through with 
the car. Water puddles, and streams even, blocked the 
way. At one place we shot over a bridge the far end of 
which sank as we crossed, and a ditch of nine feet of depth 
yawned beside the track, separated by but one foot of 
earth I Death seemed to zip close to my ear at that mo- 
ment. We saw poor homes, poor stores, wretched farms, 
shabby, almost ragged people. At one town, Selvin, on 
the road to Huntingberg, a pretty country girl "tending" 
the general store there asked us if we were coming from 
Boonville, and when we said yes, asked if we had seen 
the fair. 

"Yes," replied Franklin. 

"It's fine, isn't it?" she commented. 



472 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

"Yes," he replied gently. 

You can imagine the isolation of this region when I tell 
you that our automobile attracted universal attention; 
that we saw only one other between Boonville and Hunt- 
ingberg; that dogs and horses ran away frightened at the 
horn; and that children ran out to see. This did not seem 
quite possible. 

At Holland, however, in the southwest corner of Du- 
bois County, we encountered a splendid road, smooth and 
white, along which we tore. Indeed, this whole county 
proved a revelation, for whereas the two preceding ones 
were poor, wretched even, this was prosperous and de- 
lightful to look upon. Great meadows of emerald were 
interspersed with splendid forests of ash and beech. One 
saw sheep and Jersey and Holstein cattle In the fields, and 
for a novelty, new for me in America, repeated flocks of 
snow white geese, great droves of them, — a region, no 
doubt, given to feather raising. 

Huntingberg was alive and clean — a truly handsome 
little town with well built houses, wide streets, attractive 
stores, a brisk, businesslike atmosphere. It was really 
charming, romantically so. Beyond it was an equally fine 
road leading to Jasper, the county seat. On this we en- 
countered a beech grove so noble and well planned that 
it had the sanctity and aroma of a great cathedral. 
Through the columns of trees one could see the sun sink- 
ing — a great red ball of fire. The sky was sapphire and 
the air cool. Those lowings and bleatings and callings 
and tinklings of evening were just beginning. We ran 
the car into a fence pocket, and letting down the bars of 
a gate walked into this great hall. I was deeply im- 
pressed — moved really. I put my arms behind my back 
and gazed aloft into the silvery branches. I laid reverent 
hands on their smooth, silvery trunks — and my cheek. I 
almost asked them to bless me — to help me grow strong, 
natural, frank — all that a struggling mind in a mystic 
world should become. I spoke to the red sun in the West 
and bade it adieu for another night. I looked into the 
small still pools of water to be found here, wherein stars 










A CATHEDRAL OF TREES 
Jasper, Indiana 



THE BACKWOODS OF INDIANA 473 

would see their faces latterly, and begged of all wood 
sprites and water nymphs, nixies and pixies, that some 
day, soon perhaps, they would make me one in their 
happy councils and revels. I looked up through the trees 
to the sky, and told myself again, as I do each day, that 
life is good, that in spite of contest and bitterness and 
defeated hopes and lost ambitions and sickness and envy 
and hate and death — still, still, there is this wondrous 
spectacle which, though it may have no part or lot with 
us, or we with it, yet provides all we know of life. The 
sigh of winds, the lap of waters, the call of birds — all 
color, fragrance, yearning, hope, sweet memory — of what 
old mysteries are these compounded! 

Jasper, the county seat, was another town of which I 
most heartily approved. It was beautiful, like the rest of 
this striking county. The court house, like most of those 
in this region and elsewhere, was new, but in this instance 
built with considerable taste and individuality — not a 
slavish copy — and set in a square at the intersection of 
four wide streets on a slight rise of ground, so that com- 
ing townward from any direction, and from a long way 
off, one could see it commanding one of these striking ap- 
proaches. What a charming place in which to grow up, I 
thought ! 

Again, there was a river here, that selfsame Patoka of 
Princeton, and as we entered from the south, It provided 
some most interesting views, sylvan and delicate. Still 
once more there was a church here — St. Joseph's Roman 
Catholic — which was a triumph of taste. Most Roman 
Catholic Churches, and for that matter every other de- 
nominational church in America, have enough spent on 
them to insure originality and charm in design, if only 
taste were not wanting — but taste, that priceless, inex- 
pensive thing, is rarely ever present. They build and 
build, slavish copies of European models, usually of ca- 
thedrals, so that when one sees an original design it is like 
a breath of fresh air entering a stuffy room. This Church 
was built of a faintly greenish gray stone, and possessed 



474 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

a soaring, yet delicate bell tower at one corner. It stood 
on a considerable rise, in an open space and at right 
angles with a low flat brown convent or school, which 
gave its entrance way a plaza-like atmosphere. But for 
the fact that it was late and we were in a hurry, and it 
was locked, we would have entered, but we would have 
had to go for a key. 



CHAPTER LVIII 

FRENCH LICK 

After passing through Jasper and Dubois Counties, 
where we had seen more good automobiles, good roads 
and brisk life than we had since the very best sections of 
northern Indiana and Ohio, our luck in roads left off. 
Around the courthouse square at Jasper we had seen ma- 
chines of the best make, and parties of well to do people 
driving; but on our road to Kellerville and Norton and 
French Lick we passed nothing but rumbling wagons and 
some few, not very good, cars. 

And now the landscape changed rapidly. I had al- 
ways heard that Brown County, east of Monroe (the seat 
of our state university), was the roughest and most pic- 
turesque in the state, containing a hill, the highest in 
Indiana, of over five hundred feet! As a student I had 
walked there with a geologizing party, but if my memory 
served me correctly, it did not compare in picturesque- 
ness with the region through which we were now making 
our way. Heights and depths are variable matters any- 
way, and the impression of something stupendous or 
amazingly precipitous which one can get from a region of 
comparatively low altitude depends on the arrangement 
of its miniature gorges and crevasses. Here in Orange 
County I had an impression of great hills and deep ra- 
vines and steep inclines which quite equalled anything we 
had seen. It suggested the vicinity of Stroudsburg in 
Pennsylvania, and as we sped along there were sudden 
drops down which we ground at breakneck speed, which 
quite took my breath away. It was a true and beautiful 
mountain country, becabined, lonely, for the most part 
bridgeless — and such roads! We bumped and jounced 
and floundered along. Now and again we were at the 

475 



475 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

very bottom of a ravine, with lovely misty hills rising 
sheer above us. Again, we were on some seeming moun- 
tain side, the valleys falling sharply away from the road 
and showing some rocky rivulet at the bottom. More 
than once we shot the machine through a tumbling, spark- 
ling, moonlit stream. 

At the bottom of one ravine I saw a light, and we being 
very uncertain of our way, I climbed out at the gate and 
went up under some vines and bushes to knock at the 
door. Inside, since it was open, I beheld a quite metro- 
politan interior — craftsman furniture, a wall of well- 
built shelves loaded with books, a table strewn with mag- 
azines and papers, and the room lighted by a silk shaded 
lamp. When I knocked a short, stocky, legal looking 
youth of most precise manners and attire and a large pair 
of horn glasses on his nose, arose from a small secretary 
and came over. 

"French Lick?" I inquired. 

"About eighteen miles," he replied. "You are on the 
right road." 

I felt quite reduced. I had expected to find a pictur- 
esque, ambling, drawling mountaineer. 

Between bounces and jounces and "holding back" 
against declivities to which Bert seemed amazingly indif- 
ferent, I sat and dreamed over those moonlit hills. 
What a possession for a state like Indiana, I thought — a 
small, quaint, wonderful Alpine region within its very 
center. As time went on and population increased, I 
thought, this would afford pleasure and recreation to 
thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, who knows, 
who could not afford to go farther. Plainly it had already 
evinced its charm to the world, for were we not on the 
very outskirts of two of the most remarkable curative 
spring resorts in America, if not in the world? Who had 
not heard of French Lick — West Baden? And yet when 
I went to school at the state university, these places had 
not been heard of locally, let alone nationally. 

I recall a long, lanky student from this very county 
who was studying law at "our college," who told me of 



FRENCH LICK 477 

French Lick, and that "a lot of people around there 
thought the waters were good for rheumatism." I ex- 
pected, somehow, as we rode along, to see some evidence 
in the way of improved mountain conditions — better 
houses, more of them, possibly — now that we were in 
the vicinity of such a prosperous resort, but not a sign was 
there. Ten o'clock came and then eleven. We were told 
that we were within nine miles, seven miles, four miles, 
two miles — still no houses to speak of, and only the poor- 
est type of cabin. At one mile there was still no sign. 
Then suddenly, at the bend of a road, came summer cot- 
tages of the customary resort type, a street of them. 
Bright lamps appeared. A great wall of cream colored 
brick, ablaze with lights, arose at the bottom of the 
ravine into which we were descending. I was sure this 
was the principal hotel. Then as we approached gardens 
and grounds most extensive and formal in character ap- 
peared, and in their depths, to the left, through a faint 
pearly haze, appeared a much larger and much more 
imposing structure. This was The hotel. The other was 
an annex for servants! 

All the gaudy luxury of a Lausanne or Biarritz resort 
was here In evidence. A railroad spur adjoining a pri- 
vate hotel station contained three or four private cars, 
idling here while their owners rested. A darkened Pull- 
man train was evidently awaiting some particular hour 
to depart. At the foot of a long iron and glass awning, 
protecting a yellow marble staircase of exceedingly florate 
design, a liveried flunky stood waiting to open automobile 
doors. As we sped up he greeted us. Various black 
porters pounced on our bags like vultures. We were es- 
corted through a marble lobby such as Arabian romances 
once dreamed of as rare, and to an altar like desk, where 
a high priest of American profit deigned to permit us to 
register. We were assigned rooms (separate quarters 
for our chauffeur) at six dollars the day, and subsequently 
ushered down two miles of hall on the fifth or sixth floor 
to our very plain, very white, but tastefully furnished 



478 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

rooms, where we were permitted to pay the various slaves 
who had attended us. 

"George," I said to the robustious soul who carried my 
bag, "how many rooms has this hotel?" 

"Eight hundred, suh. Ah believe." 

"And how many miles is it from here to the dining- 
room : 

"We don't serve no meals aftah nine o'clock, suh, but 
Ah expects if you wanted a lil' sumfin sent up to yo room, 
de chef would see you done got it." 

"No, George, I'm afraid of these chefs. I think I'll 
go out instead. Isn't there a restaurant around here 
somewhere?" 

"Nothin' as you-all'd like to patronize, suh, no suh. 
Dey is one restaurant. It keeps open most all night. It's 
right outside de grounds here. I think you might get a 
lil' sumfin dayah. Dey has a kinda pie countah." 

"That's it, George," I repHed. "That's me. A plain, 
humble pie counter. And now good night to you, 
George." 

"Good night, suh." 

And he went out grinning. 

I may seem to be exaggerating, but I say it in all seri- 
ousness. These enormous American watering place ho- 
tels, with their armies of servants, heavy, serious-faced 
guests, solemn state diningrooms, miles of halls and the 
like, more or less frighten me. They are so enormous. 
Their guests are so stiff, starchy, captain-of-industry-like. 
And they are so often (not always) accompanied by such 
pursy, fussy, heavily bejeweled or besilked and velveted 
females, whose very presence seems to exude a kind of 
opposition to or contempt for simple things, which puts 
me on tenter hooks. I don't seem quite to belong. I 
may have the necessary money to pay for all and sundry 
services such as great hostelries provide — for a period 
anyhow — but even so, I still feel small. I look about me 
furtively and suspect every man I see of being at least a 
millionaire. I feel as though I were entirely surrounded 
by judges, merchant princes, eminent doctors, lawyers, 




FRENCH LICK 
The Hotel and Fresh Water Spring 



FRENCH LICK 479 

priests, senators and presidents, and that if I dare say a 
word, some one might cry — "That man! Who is he, 
anyhow? Put him out." And so, as I say, I "kinda- 
sorta" slip along and never make any more noise or fuss 
or show than I have to. If a head waiter doesn't put me 
in exactly the place I would like to be, or the room clerk 
doesn't give me just the room I would like, I always say, 
"Ah, well, I'm just a writer, and perhaps I'd better not 
say anything. They might put me out. Bishops and doc- 
tors and lawyers ought to have all the center tables or 

window seats, and so " It's really uncomfortable to 

be so humble — just nothing at all. 

But notwithstanding this rather tragic state, my room 
was a good one, and the windows, once opened to the 
moonlight, commanded a fine view of the grounds, with 
the walks, spring pavilions and artificial grottoes and 
flower beds all picked out clearly by the pale, ethereal 
light. The restaurant over the way was all that George 
said it was and more — very bad. The whole town seemed 
to be comprised of this one great hotel and an enormous 
annex for servants and chauffeurs, and then a few tatter- 
demalion resorts and the town cottages. The springs in 
the grounds were four or five in number, all handsomely 
hooded with Moorish pavilions. In each case these latter 
were floored with colored marbles, and you went down 
steps into them, carrying your own glass and drinking all 
of the peculiar tasting fluid you could endure. Resident 
physicians prescribe treatments or methods, for a price. 
The very wealthy visitors or patients often bring their 
own physicians, who resent, no doubt, all local medical 
advice. The victims, or lovers of leisure, idle about these 
far-flung grounds, enjoying the walks, the smooth grass, 
the views, the golf links and the tennis courts. The 
hours for meals are the principal hours — and dinner from 
seven to nine is an events — a dress affair. The grand 
parade to the diningroom seems to begin at six fortyfive 
or six fifty. At that time you can sit in the long hall lead- 



48o A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

ing to that very essential chamber and see the personages 
go by. 

For this occasion, at breakfast the next morning and 
luncheon, which here is a kind of an affair of state, Frank- 
lin and I did well enough. We were given tables with a 
pleasant view, walked over the grounds, drank at all the 
springs, bought picture postcards, and after idling and get- 
ting thoroughly refreshed, decided to be on our way. 
West Baden, as it proved, was directly on our route out 
of town, not more than three quarters of a mile off; and 
to this we repaired, also, merely to see. 

If anything, it was more assuming in its appearance 
than French Lick. The principal hotel, an enormous one 
of cream brick and white stone, with a low, flat, red oval 
dome, Byzantine or Moroccan in spirit, was almost of the 
size and the general appearance of the Trocadero in 
Paris. As in the case of the hotel at French Lick, the 
grounds were very extensive and gardened to within an 
inch of their life. Pagodas and smart kiosks indicated 
the springs. A great wide circular driveway admitted to 
the entrance of the principal hotel. Banked and parked 
with stone, there was a stream here which ran through 
the principal grounds, and there were other hotels by no 
means humble in their appearance. 

Satisfied at having at least seen these twin resorts, I 
was content to make short work of the rest of the jour- 
ney. At Paoli (what a rural sounding midwestern name), 
the county seat of this poor and rather backwoods county, 
we found a courthouse so small and countrified that we 
could not resist the desire to pause and observe it — it 
was so nondescript — a cross between a Greek temple and 
a country school. The Greek temple was surmounted by 
a small, somewhat German looking belfry. About it, on 
all sides, ran the old time hitching rail for wagons, an 
unpretentious note which indicated the nonarrival of the 
automobile. To it were fastened a collection of nonde- 
script wagons, buggies, and buckboards, intermingled with 
three or four small automobiles. I got out and walked 
through it only to see the county treasurer, or someone in 



FRENCH LICK 481 

his office, sawing away on a fiddle. The music was not 
exactly entrancing, but jolly. Outside stood a rather 
gaunt and malarial looking farmer in the poorest of 
crinkly jeans, threadbare and worn at the elbows. "Tell 
me," I said. "I see on the map here a place called Lost 
River. Is there a river here and does it disappear under- 
ground?" 

"That's just what it does, mister," he replied most 
courteously, "but thar ain't nothin' to see. The water 
just sorta peters out as it goes along. You can't see 
nothin' but just dry stones. I don't know exactly where 
it does come up again. Out here Orangeville way, I 
think. There are a lot of underground caves around 
here." 

We went on, but on discovering a splendid stretch of 
road and speeding on it, we forgot all about Lost River. 

Throughout this and the next county north, the roads 
seemed to attain a maximum of perfection, possibly due 
to the amazing quarries at Bedford, beyond. We traveled 
so fast that we ran down a hen and left it fluttering in the 
road, a sight which gave me the creeps and started a new 
train of speculation. I predicted then, to myself priv-ately, 
that having run down one thing we would run down an- 
other before the trip was over, for, as I said before, this 
is the sort of thing that is always happening to me — what 
Nietzsche would call my typical experience. If I should 
stop at one pretentious hotel like the Kittatinny, on a trip 
like this, I would be sure to stop at another, like French 
Lick, before I was through, or if I lost a valuable ring on 
Monday, I would be sure to lose a valuable pin on Thurs- 
day or thereabouts. Life goes on in pairs for m*". My 
one fear in conn.ection with this chicken incident was that 
the loss might prove something much more valuable than 
a chicken, and the thought of death by accident, to others 
than myself, always terrifies me. 

Through the region that suggested the beauty and 
sweep of western New York, we now sped into Bedford 
City, a city that seemed to have devoted hundreds of 
thousands of dollars to churches. I never saw so many 



482 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

large and even quite remarkable churches in so small a 
town. It only had twelve thousand population, yet the 
churches looked as though they might minister to thirty 
thousand. 

Just at the edge of this town, north, we came to quar- 
ries, the extent and impressiveness of which seemed to me 
a matter of the greatest import. Carrara, in Italy, is 
really nothing compared with this. There some of the 
pure white stone is mined — cut from tunnels in the 
sides of the hills. Here the quarries are all open to the 
sky and reaching for miles, apparently, on every hand. 
Our road lay along a high ridge which divided two im- 
mense fields of stone, and sitting in our car we could see 
derricks and hear electrically driven stone drills on every 
hand for miles. There were sheer walls of stone, thirty, 
forty, and as it seemed to me, even fifty feet high, cut 
true to plummet, and which revealed veins of unquarried 
stone suggesting almost untold wealth. At the bottom 
of these walls were pools of dull green water, the color of 
a smoky emerald, and looking like a precious stone. In 
the distance, on every hand, were hills of discarded stone, 
or at least stone for which there was no present use. I 
fancy they were veined or broken or slightly defective 
blocks which are of no great value now, but which a more 
frugal generation may discover how to use. In every 
direction were car tracks, spurs, with flat cars loaded or 
waiting to be loaded with these handsome blocks. As we 
went north from here, following a line of railroad that 
led to Bloomington, Indiana, the ways seemed to be lined 
with freight trains hauling this stone. We must have 
passed a dozen such in our rapid run to Bloomington. 

In approaching this town my mind was busy with an- 
other group of reminiscences. As I thought back over 
them now, it seemed to me that I must have been a most 
unsatisfactory youth to contemplate at this time, one who 
lacked nearly all of the firm, self-directive qualities which 
most youths of my age at that time were supposed to 
have. I was eighteen then, and all romance and moon- 



FRENCH LICK 483 

shine. I had come down from Chicago after these sev- 
eral years at Warsaw and two in Chicago, in which I had 
been trying to connect commercially with life, and as I 
may say now, I feel myself to have been a rather poor 
specimen. I had no money other than about three hundred 
dollars loaned to me, or rather forced upon me, by an 
ex-teacher of mine (one who had conducted the recitation 
room in the high school at Warsaw) who, finding me 
working for a large wholesale hardware company in 
Chicago, insisted that I should leave and come here to be 
educated. 

"You may never learn anything directly there, Theo- 
dore," she counseled, "but something will come to you 
indirectly. You will see what education means, what its 
aim is, and that will be worth a great deal. Just go one 
year, at least, and then you can decide for yourself what 
you want to do after that." 

She was an old maid, with a set of false upper teeth, 
and a heavenly, irradiating smile. She had led a very 
hard life herself, and did not wish me to. She was pos- 
sessed of a wondrously delicate perception of romance, 
and was of so good a heart that I can scarcely ever think 
of her without a tendency to rhapsodize. She was not 
beautiful, and yet she was not unattractive either. Four 
years later, having eventually married, she died in child- 
birth. At this time, for some reason not clear to myself, 
she yearned over me in a tender, delicate, motherly way. 
I have never forgotten the look in her eyes when she 
found me in the wholesale hardware house (they called 
me down to the office and I came in my overalls), nor 
how she said, smiling a delicate, whimsical, emotional 
smile: 

"Theodore, work of this kind isn't meant for you, 
really. It will injure your spirit. I want you to let me 
help you go to school again." 

I cannot go into the romance of this — it is too long a 
story. I forget, really, whether I protested much or not. 
My lungs and stomach were troubling me greatly and I 
was coughing and agonizing with dyspepsia nearly all the 



484 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

while. After some conferences and arrangements made 
with my mother, I came — and for an entire college year 
dreamed and wondered. 

I know now for a fact that I never learned, all the 
time I was there, quite what it was all about. I heard 
much talk of -ologies and -tries and -isms without quite 
grasping the fundamental fact that they were really deal- 
ing with plain, ordinary, everyday life — the forces about 
us. Somehow I had the vague uncertain notion that they 
did not concern ordinary life at all. I remember one 
brisk youth telling me that in addition to law, which he 
was studying, he was taking up politics, taxation, econom- 
ics, and the like, as aids. I wondered of what possible 
use those things could be to him, and how much superior 
his mind must be to mine, since he could grasp them and I, 
no doubt, could not. 

Again, the professors there were such a wondrous com- 
pany to me, quite marvelous. They were such an outre 
company, your heavy-domed, owl-like wiseacres, who see 
in books and the storing up of human knowledge in books 
the sum and substance of life's significance. As I look 
back on them now I marvel at my awe of them then, and 
at that time I was not very much awestricken either — 
rather nonplussed. 

Suffice it to say that the one thing that I really wanted 
to see in connection with this college was a ground floor 
parlor I had occupied in an old, rusty, vine-covered house, 
which stood in the center of a pleasing village lawn and 
had for a neighbor a small, one-story frame, where dwelt 
a hoyden of a girl who made it her business to bait me the 
first semester I was there. This room I had occupied 
with a law student by the name of William or Bill Wad- 
hams, center rush and almost guiding spirit of the whole 
college football team, and afterwards county treasurer of 
and state senator from an adjacent Indiana county. He 
was a romping, stamping, vigorous, black-haired, white- 
faced pagan, who cursed and drank a little and played 
cards and flirted with the girls. He could be so mild 
and so engaging that when I first saw him I liked him 



FRENCH LICK 485 

immensely, and what was much more curious he seemed 
to take a fancy to me. We made an agreement as to 
expenditures and occupying the same room. It did not 
seem in the least odd to me, at that time, that he should 
occupy the same bed with me. I had always been sleeping 
with one or the other of my brothers. It was more odd 
that, although he at once surrounded himself with the 
creme-de-la-creme of the college football world, who made 
of our humble chamber a conference and card room, I 
got along well enough with them all to endure it, and even 
made friends out of some of them. They were charming 
— so robust and boisterous and contentious and yet genial. 
Through his personality or my own — I can never quite 
make out which — I was drawn into a veritable maelstrom 
of college life. I had no least idea what I wanted to 
study, but because I had been deficient in certain things 
in high school, I took up those, — first-year Latin, geom- 
etry, English literature, history and Old English. How I 
ever got along I do not know. I think I failed in most 
things because I never mastered grammar or mathe- 
matics. However, I staggered on, worrying considerably 
and feeling that my life, and indeed my character, was a 
failure. Between whiles, I found tiine and the mood for 
associating with and enjoying all sorts of odd personali- 
ties — youth of the most diverse temperaments and ambi- 
tions, who seemed to find in me something which they 
liked, — a Michigan law student, an Indiana minister's 
son, a boy who was soon to be heir to a large fortune 
and so on and so on. I was actually popular with some, 
after a fashion, and if I had known hov/ to make use of 
my abilities in this line — had I really craved friendship 
and connections — I might have built up some enduring 
relationships which would have stood me in good stead, 
commercially and socially, later. As it was, my year 
ended, I left college, dropping all but half a dozen youths 
from my list of even occasional correspondents, and 
finally losing track of all of them, finding in different 
scenes and interests all that I seemed to require in the 
way of mental and social diversion. 



CHAPTER LIX 

A COLLEGE TOWN 

Bloomington, as we sped into it, did not seem much 
changed from the last time I had laid eyes upon it, 
twentyfive years before, only now, having seen the more 
picturesque country to the south of it, I did not think, the 
region in which it lay seemed as broken and diversified as 
it did the year I first came to it. Then I had seen only the 
more or less level regions of northern and southern In- 
diana and the territory about Chicago, and so Blooming- 
ton had seemed quite remarkable, physically. Now it 
seemed more or less tame, and in addition, it had grown 
so in size and architectural pretentiousness as to have 
obliterated most of that rural inadequacy and backwoods 
charm which had been its most delightful characteristic 
to me in 1889. 

Then it was so poor and so very simple. The court 
house square had been a gem of moss-back simplicity and 
poverty, more attractive even, rurally speaking, than that 
court house I just mentioned as being the charm of Paoli. 
Here, also, the hitching rail had extended all around the 
square. I saw more tumble-down wagons, rheumatic and 
broken-down men, old, brown, almost moss covered coats 
and thin, bony, spavined horses in the Bloomington of 
1889 than I ever saw anywhere before or since. In addi- 
tion to this, in spite of the smallness of the college, many 
of the six hundred students had considerable money, for 
Indiana was a prosperous state and these youths and girls 
were very well provided for. Secret or Greek letter so- 
cieties and college social circles of different degrees of 
import abounded. There were college rakes and college 
loafers and college swells. At that time the university 
chanced to have a faculty which, because of force and 

4B6 



A COLLEGE TOWN 487 

brains, was attracting considerable attention. David 
Starr Jordan, afterwards President of Leland Stanford, 
was president here. William Gifford Swain, afterwards 
President of Swarthmore, was professor of mathematics. 
Rufus L. Green, a man who made considerable stir in 
mathematics and astronomy in later years, was asso- 
ciate in the chair of mathematics. Jeremiah Jenks, a 
man who figured conspicuously in American sociological 
and political discussion in after life and added consider- 
able luster to the fame of Cornell, was occupying the chair 
of sociology and political economy. Edward Howard 
Griggs, a man who has carried culture, with a large C, 
into all the women's clubs and intellectual movements of 
one kind and another from ocean to ocean, was occupying 
an assistant professorship in literature. There was Von 
Hoist, called to the chair of history at the University of 
Chicago, and so on — a quite interesting and scintillating 
galaxy of educative minds. 

The student body, of which I was such an unsatisfac- 
tory unit, seemed quite well aware of the character and 
import of the men above them, educationally. There was 
constant and great talk concerning the relative merits of 
each and every one. As Miss Fielding, my sponsor and 
mentor, had predicted, I learned more concerning the 
seeming import of education, the branches of knowledge 
and the avenues and vocations open to men and women 
in the intellectual world than I had ever dreamed existed 
— and just from hearing the students argue, apotheosize, 
anathematize, or apostrophize one course or one pro- 
fessor or another. Here I met my first true radicals — s 
young men who disagreed vigorously and at every point 
with the social scheme and dogma as they found it. 
Here I found the smug conventionalists and grinds seek- 
ing only to carve out the details of a profession and sub- 
sequently make a living. Here I found the flirt, the col- 
lege widow, and the youth with purely socializing ten- 
dencies, who found in college life a means of gratifying 
an intense and almost chronic desire for dancing, dressing, 
spooning, living in a world of social airs and dreams. 



488 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

There were, oddly enough, hard and chronic religionists 
even among the incoming class, who were bent upon 
preaching "the kingdom of God is at hand" to all the 
world. They seemed a little late to me, even at that day 
and date, though I was still not quite sure myself. 

Catholicism had almost made heaven and hell a reality 
to me. And here were attractive and intellectual women 
— the first I had ever seen, really — who in those parlia- 
mentary and social discussions incidental to student class 
and social life as represented by professorial entertain- 
ments and receptions, could rise and discuss intelligently 
subjects which were still more or less nebulous to me. 
They gave me my first inkling of the third sex. Indeed, 
it was all so interesting, so new, so fascinating, that I was 
set agape and remained so until the college year was over. 

I regained my health, which I had thought all but lost, 
and in addition began to realize that perhaps there were 
certain things I might intelligently investigate over a 
period of years, with profit to myself. I began to see that 
however unsuited certain forms of intellectual training 
and certain professions might be to me, they offered dis- 
tinct and worthy means of employment to others. 
Though I had been aroused at first, now I began to be 
troubled and unhappy. I felt distinctly that I had wasted 
a year, or worse yet, had not been sufficiently well 
equipped mentally to make the most of it. I began to be 
troubled over my future, and while I was not willing to 
accept my sponsor's kind offer and return the following 
year (I realized now that without some basic training 
it would do me no good) , still, I was not willing to admit 
to myself that I was intellectually hopeless. There must 
be some avenue of approach to the intellectual life for 
me, too, I said to myself, — only how find it? I finally left 
unhappy, distrait, scarcely knowing which way to turn, 
but resolved to be something above a mere cog in a com- 
mercial machine. This proved, really, one of the most 
vitalizing years of my life. 

During my stay here, what novel sensations did I not 
experience ! It was all so different from the commercial 



A COLLEGE TOWN 489 

life from which I had been extricated in Chicago. There 
I had been rising at five thirty, eating an almost impos- 
sible breakfast (often the condition of my stomach would 
not permit me to eat at all), taking a slow, long distance 
horse car to the business heart, working from seven to 
six with an hour for lunch, in a crowded, foreman bossed 
loft, and then taking the car home again to eat, and be- 
cause I was always very tired, to go to bed almost at 
once. Only Saturday afternoons in summer (the Satur- 
day half holiday idea was then becoming known in Amer- 
ica) and Sunday in winter offered sufficient time for me 
to recuperate and see a little of the world to make life 
somewhat endurable for me, — a situation which I greatly 
resented. It was most exasperating. 

In college all that was changed. From the smoky, 
noisy city, I was transported once more to the really 
peaceful country, where all was green and sweet, and 
where owing to the peculiarly equable climate of this 
region, flowers bloomed until late December. The col- 
lege curriculum necessitated my presence in class only 
from nine until twelve thirty or so. After that I was free 
to study or do as I chose. Outside my window in this 
lovely old house where I had a room were flowers and 
vines and a grape arbor heavy with blue grapes, and a 
stretch of grass that was like balm to my soul. The col- 
lege campus, while it contained but a few humble and 
unattractive buildings, was so strewn with great trees and 
threaded through one corner of it (where I entered by a 
stile) with a crystal clear brook, that I was entranced. 
Many a morning on my way to class or at noon on my 
way out, I have thrown myself down by the side of this 
stream, stretched out my arms and rested, thinking of the 
difference between my state here and in Chicago. There 
I was so unhappy in the thing that I was doing. The Irish 
superintendent who was over my floor despised me — 
very rightly so, perhaps, — and was at no pains to conceal 
it, threatening always to see that I was discharged at the 
end of the year. Our home life was now not so unpleas- 



490 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

ant, only I found no time to enjoy it; my work was too 
arduous. 

Here were no pots and kettles to pile in bins, no end- 
less loads of tinware and woodenware to unpack out of 
straw or crates and store away, only to get them out 
again on orders. There I felt myself a pointless, unim- 
portant bondslave. Here I was a free, intellectual 
agent, to come or go as I chose. I could even attend 
classes or not as I chose. Study was something I must 
do for myself or not. There was no one present to urge 
me on. Various youths, as I have said, at once gathered 
about me. Prospective lawyers, doctors, politicians, 
preachers, educators in embryo, walked by my side or sat 
by me at the club boarding table, or dropped in between 
four and six of an afternoon, or walked with me in the 
country, or played cards on Saturday afternon or Sun- 
day, or proposed an evening at church or at a debating 
society to discuss philosophy or read, or even a call upon 
a girl. I was not very well equipped materially, but 
neither was I absolutely unpresentable, and aside from 
the various Greek letter and social fraternities, it did not 
make so much difference. I was never actually tapped 
for membership in one of these latter, and yet I was told 
afterwards that two different fraternities had been seri- 
ously divided over the question of my eligibility — another 
typical experience of mine. But I went out a great deal 
nevertheless, dreamed much, idled, rested; and if at the 
end of the year I was mentally disgruntled and unhappy, 
physically I was very much improved. There can be no 
question of that. And my outlook and ambitions were 
better. 

It was during this winter that I experienced several 
of those early, and because I was young and very im- 
pressionable, somewhat memorable love affairs which, 
however sharp the impression they made at the time, came 
to nothing. Owing to a very retiring and nervous dis- 
position I could never keep my countenance or find my 
tongue in the presence of the fair. If a girl was pretty 



A COLLEGE TOWN 491 

and in the least coquettish or self conscious, I was at once 
stricken as if with the palsy, or left rigid and played over 
by chills and fever. 

Adjoining this house, in the cottage previously men- 
tioned, was a young, tow headed hoyden, who no sooner 
saw that I was in this house as a guest, than she plotted 
my discomfiture and unrest. 

It was my custom, because there was a space between 
two windows outside of which were flowers, to study in 
the east side of my room, looking out on the lawn. In 
the cottage adjoining were several windows through 
which, on divers occasions during the first and second 
week, I saw a girl looking at me, at first closing the shut- 
ters when she saw me looking; but later, finding me bash- 
ful, no doubt, and inclined to keep my eyes on my books, 
leaving them open and even singing or laughing in a ring- 
ing, disturbing way. On several occasions when our eyes 
met, she half smiled, or seemed to, but I was too terrified 
by the thought of a possible encounter on the strength of 
this to be able to continue my gaze, or to do what would 
seem the logical thing to most, to speak, or nod, or smile. 
Nevertheless, in spite of my inability to meet her over- 
tures in the spirit in which they were made, she was ap- 
parently not discouraged. She continued to half smile — 
to give me the shaking realization that some day soon I 
might have to talk to her whether I would or not — and 
then where would I find words? 

One afternoon, as I was brooding over my Latin, at- 
tempting to unravel the mysteries of conjugations and 
modifications, I saw her come out of her back door and 
run across the lawn to the kitchen of the old widow lady 
who kept this house. I was not at all disturbed by this, 
only interested, and keenly so, even jealous of the pleas- 
ure the old lady was to have in the girl's company. She 
was exceedingly pretty, and by now there were other male 
students in the house, though not on my floor. I thought 
of her graceful body and bright hair and pink cheeks, 
when suddenly there was a knock at my door, and open- 
ing it I encountered the feeble old lady who kept the place, 



492 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

very nervous and bashful herself, but smiling amusedly In 
a sly, senile way. 

"The young lady next door wants to know if you won't 
help her with her Latin. There's something she can't 
quite understand," she said weakly. 

Actually my blood ran cold. My hair writhed and 
rose, then wilted. I felt shooting pains in my arms and 
knees. 

"Why certainly," I managed to articulate, not knowing 
anything about Latin grammar, but being dizzard enough 
to imagine that any educational information was required 
on this occasion. 

I followed into the old fashioned diningroom, with 
its table covered with a red cotton cloth, and there was 
the girl simpering and mock-shy, looking down after one 
appealing glance at me, and wanting to know if I wouldn't 
please show her how to translate this sentence! 

We sat down in adjoining chairs. It was well, for my 
knees were rapidly giving way. I was dunce enough to 
look at her book instead of her, but at that her head came 
so close that her hair brushed my cheek. My tongue by 
then was swollen to nine times its normal proportions. 
Nevertheless I managed to say something — God only 
knows what. My hands were shaking like leaves. She 
could not have failed to notice. Possibly she took pity on 
me, for she looked at me coyly, laughed off her alleged 
need, inquired if I was taking Latin, and wanted to know 
if I wasn't from Fort Wayne, Indiana. She knew a boy 
who had been here the year before who looked like me, 
and he was from Fort Wayne. 

With all these aids I could do nothing. I couldn't 
talk. I couldn't think of a single blessed thing to say. It 
never occurred to me to tease her, or to tell her how 
pretty she looked, or frankly to confess that I knew noth- 
ing of Latin but that I liked her, and to jest with her 
about love and boys. That was years beyond me. I was 
actually so helpless that in pity, or disgust, she finally ex- 
claimed, "Oh, well, I think I can get along now. I'm so 



A COLLEGE TOWN 493 

much obliged to you" — and then jumped up and ran 
away. 

I went back to my room to hide my head and to be- 
moan my cowardice and think over the things I should 
have said and done and the things I would do tomorrow 
or the next time I met her. But there never was any next 
time. She never troubled to look so teasingly out of her 
window. Thereafter when she passed the house she ran 
and seemed absorbed in something else. If, unavoidably, 
our eyes met, she nodded, but only in a neighborly way. 
And then in a few days, the aforesaid William Wadhams 
appeared upon the scene, gallant roysterer that he was, 
and made short work of her. One glance and there was 
a smile, a wave of the hand. The next afternoon he was 
leaning over her fence talking in the most gallant fash- 
ion. There was a gay chase a day or two later, in and 
out of bushes and around trees, in an attempt to kiss her, 
but she got away, leaving a slipper behind her which he 
captured and kept while he argued with her through her 
window. Later on there were other meetings. She went 
on a drive with him somewhere one Sunday afternoon. 
In my chagrined presence he discanted on having kissed 
her, and on what a peach she was. It was a pathetic, dis- 
couraging situation for me, but the race is to the swift, 
the battle to the strong, and so I told myself at the time. 
I really did not resent his victory. I liked him too much. 
But I developed a kind of horror of my own cowardice, a 
contempt for my ineptness, which in later years, year by 
year, finally built up a kind of courage. 

There was another girl, fifteen or sixteen, across the 
street from me, the daughter of a doctor, living in a low, 
graceful, romantic cottage, fronted by trees and flowers. 
She inspired me with an entirely different kind of pas- 
sion. The first was heavily admixed with desire — the 
girl who approached me inspired it. In the second case 
it was wholly sexless, something which sprang like a 
white flame at the sight of a delicate, romantic face, 
and while it tortured me for years, never went beyond 



494 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

the utmost outposts of romance. Although later I often 
fell in love with others, still I could never quite get her 
out of my mind. And though she colored this whole year 
for me, desperately, I never even spoke to her. 

I first saw her coming home from school, a slim, 
delicate, tenuous type, her black hair smoothed back from 
her brow, her thin, slender white hands holding a few 
books, a long cape or mackintosh hung loosely about her 
shoulders, and — I adored her at sight. The fictional rep- 
resentations of Dante's Beatrice are the only ones that 
have ever represented her to me. I looked after her 
day after day until finally she noticed me. Once she 
paused as she went Into her home, her books under her 
arm, and picking a flower stood and held It to her face, 
glancing only once in my direction. Then she danced 
lightly up her steps and disappeared. At other times, 
as she would pass, she would glance at me furtively, and 
then seem to hurry on. She seemed terrorized by my 
admiration. I did my best to screw up my courage to 
the point of being able to address her, and yet I never 
did. There were so many opportunities, too ! Daily she 
went to the post office or down town for something or 
other, nearly every afternoon she came home along the 
same street, and most often alone. With some girls, 
or her sister, who was learning to play the violin, she 
went to church of a Wednesday and Sunday evening. I 
followed her and attended that church — or waited out- 
side. Once In January, right after the Christmas holi- 
days, there was a heavy snow fall and we had sleighing 
on this very street. She came out with her sled one 
Saturday morning and looked over at me where I was 
sitting by my window, studying. I wanted to go forth 
and speak to her on this hill — there were so few there — 
but I was afraid. And she sledded alone! 

Then as the year drifted toward spring, I wrote her 
a note. I composed fifteen before I wrote this one, ask- 
ing her if she would not come down to the campus stile 
after she had put her books away — that I wanted to talk 
with her. It was a foolish note, quite an Impossible 



A COLLEGE TOWN 495 

proposition for a girl of her years — frightening. All I 
had to say I could have said, falling in step with her 
at some point, and beginning a friendly, innocent conver- 
sation. But I was too wrought up and too cowardly to 
be able to do the natural thing. 

After days of preliminary meditation I finally met her 
in her accustomed path, and handed her the paper. She 
took it with a frightened, averted glance — there was a 
look of actual fear in her eyes — and hurried on. I went 
to the stile, but she did not come. I saw her afterward, 
but she turned away, not in opposition, I could see that, 
but in fright. That night I saw her come to the win- 
dow and look over at my window, but when she saw me 
looking she quickly drew the blind. Thereafter she would 
look regularly, and one evening, after putting away her 
books, I saw her walk down to the stile, but now I was 
too frightened to follow. And so it went until the end 
of the second semester, when, because of room changes 
and most of the crowd I was familiar with moving to 
the district immediately south of the college, I felt 
obliged to move also. Besides, by now I had given up 
in despair. I felt that she must feel and see that I was 
without vitality — and as for my opinion of myself, it is 
beyond description. 

I left, but often of an evening in the spring I used 
to come and look at her windows, the lighted lamp in- 
side communicating a pale luster to them. I was mis- 
erably, painfully unhappy and sad. But I never spoke. 
The very last day of my stay but one, in the evening, 
I went again — just to see. 

What better tribute could I pay to beauty in youth! 



CHAPTER LX 
"booster day" and a memory 

Entering Bloomington this afternoon, the memories 
of all my old aches and pains were exceedingly dim. We 
say to ourselves at many particular times, "I will never 
forget this," or, "The pain of this will endure forever," 
but, alas! even our most treasured pains and sufferings 
escape us. We are compelled to admit that the memory 
of that which rankled so is very dim. Marsh fires, all 
of us. We are made to glow by the heat and radiance of 
certain days, but we fade — and we vanish. 

Nevertheless, entering Bloomington now it had some 
charm, only as I thought the whole thing over the mem- 
ory of my various sex failures still rankled. "I was not 
really happy here," I told myself. "I was in too transient 
and inadequate a mood." And perhaps that was true. 
At any rate, I wanted to see this one principal room I 
have previously mentioned, and the college and the court 
house, and feel the general atmosphere of the place. 

As a whole, the town was greatly changed, but not 
enough to make it utterly different. One could still see 
the old town in the new. For although the old, ram- 
shackle, picturesque attractive court house had been sub- 
stituted by a much larger and more imposing build- 
ing of red brick and white stone — a not uninteresting 
design — still a number of the buildings which had for- 
merly surrounded it were here. The former small and 
by no means cleanly post office, with its dingy paper and 
knife marked writing shelf on one side, had been re- 
placed by a handsome government building suitable for 
a town of thirty or forty thousand. A new city hall, a 
thing unthought of in my day, was being erected in a 
street just south of the square. New bank buildings, dry- 

496 



"BOOSTER DAY" AND A MEMORY 497 

goods stores, drug store, restaurants, were all in evi- 
dence. In my time there had been but two restaurants, 
both small, and one almost impossible. Now there were 
four or five quite respectable ones, and one of consider- 
able pretensions. In addition, down the Main Street 
could be seen the college, or university, a striking group 
of buildings entirely different from those I had known. 
A picture postcard, referring to one of the buildings, 
spoke of five thousand population for the city, and a 
four thousand attendance for the University. 

Feeling that too much had disappeared to make our 
stop of any particular import, still I was eager to see 
what had become of the old rooming house, and whether 
the little cottage next door and the home of Beatrice over 
the way were still in existence. Under my guidance we 
turned at the exact corner, and stopped the car at the 
curb. I was by no means uncertain, for on the corner 
diagonal from my old room was a quondam student's 
rooming house too obviously the same to be mistaken. 
But where was the one in which I had lived? Appar- 
ently it was gone. There was an old house on the corner 
looking somewhat like it, and the second from it on 
the same side was evidently the small house in which 

Miss T had lived; and over the way — yes, save for 

another house crowded in beside it, that was the same too. 
Only in the case of this house on the corner . . . 

All at once it came to me. I could see what had been 
done. 

"Willie," I said, to a boy who was playing marbles 
with two other boys, right in front of us, "how long has 
this second house been here — this one next to the 
corner?" 

"I don't know. I've only been here since Booster 
Day." 

"Booster Day?" I queried, suddenly and entirely di- 
verted by this curious comment. "What in the world is 
Booster Day?" 

"Booster Dayl" He stared incredulously, as though 



498 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

he had not quite heard. "Aw, gwann, you know what 
Booster Day is." 

"I give you my solemn word," I replied, very seri- 
ously. "I don't. I never heard of it before. Believe 
it or not — I never did. I don't live anywhere around 
here, you know." 

"Hey, Tozer," he called to another boy who was up 
in a tree in front of the house, and who up to this 
moment had been keeping another youth from coming 
near by striking at him with a stick, "here's a feller says 
he never heard of Booster Day. Aw, haw!" 

"It's the truth," I persisted. "I'm perfectly serious. 
You think I'm teasing you, but I'm not. I never heard 
of it." 

"Where dya live then?" he asked. 

"New York," I replied. 

"City?" 

"Yes." 

"Didya come out here in that car?" 

"Yes." 

"And they ain't got a Booster Day in New York?" 

"I never heard of one before." 

"Well, we have one here." 

"Well, when does it come, then?" I asked, hoping 
to get at it in that way. 

"In summer time," he replied, smiling, "now — about 
August." 

"No, it don't," commented the boy in the tree. "It 
comes in the spring. I know because We were still in 
school yet last year, and they let us out that day." 

"Well, what month was it in then ?" I went on. "April, 
May, June?" 

"May, I think," said the boy in the tree. "I know we 
were still in school anyhow." 

"Well, what do they do on Booster Day?" I inquired 
of the boy on the ground. "What do you do?" 

"Well," he said, kicking the bricks with his toes, "they, 
now, send up balloons and shoot off firecrackers and have 



"BOOSTER DAY" AND A MEMORY 499 

a parade, and someone goes up in a flying machine, at 
least he did last year." 

"Yes, what for, though?" I inquired. 

"Because it's Booster Day," he insisted. 

"But don't you see that isn't an answer?" I pleaded. 
"I want to know what Booster Day is for — why they have 
it, why they send up balloons and call it Booster Day. 
They didn't have a Booster Day when I lived out here." 

"I know," called the boy in the tree gallantly. He 
had evidently been turning this problem over in his own 
mind, and now came to the other's rescue. "It's the day 
all the stores advertise to get people to come into town. 
It's to boost the town." 

"Well, now, that sounds reasonable," I commented. 
"And does it come on the same day every year?" 

"I don't know. I think so." 

"Well, how long have you been here?" 

"I was born here." 

"And have you always had a Booster Day?" 

"Yes, sir." 

"Well now, there you have it," I said to the first boy. 
"Booster Day is the day you boost the town — advertis- 
ing day. You think it's always been and yet you don't 
even know what day it comes on. I'll bet you haven't 
had such a day out here for more than ten years." 

"Ooh!" chimed in one of the little ones, quite apropos 
of so great a flight of time. "I was born — now — three 
years ago." 

"Were you?" I said. "Then you scarcely know of 
Booster Day, do you?" 

"No." 

"Ya do, too," put in the ground boy. "Ya said awhile 
ago ya saw the parade last summer." 

"No, I never." 

"Ya did too." 

To prevent hostilities over this very important point, 
I said to another boy, drawn near, and who was standing 
by open-mouthed: "Where do you live?" 



500 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

"In there," he pointed, indicating my old study. "We 
keep boarders." 

"Then you can tell me maybe — did that house always 
have a porch?" 

"No, sir. They put that one on two years ago." 

"And was it always on the corner?" 

"No, sir. They moved it over when they built this 
house in here. I know 'cause, now, we lived down there 
before we moved up here, and I seen 'em do it." 

"That settles it," I said cheerfully. "Do you suppose 
your mother would let me go in and look at that corner 
room : 

"My mother's away to the country. It's only my sis- 
ter's at home. But you can come in. The room ain't 
rented now." 

He marched briskly up the steps and opened the door. 
I followed while Franklin, who had been idly listening 
to the conversation as he sketched, stood outside and 
watched me. It was quite the same, save for a new, 
smooth, hardwood floor and the porch. The window 
where I always sat commanded no view of any lawn, but, 
looking across the way and at the house diagonally oppo- 
site, I could get it all back. And it touched me in a way 
— like the dim, far-off echo or suggestion of something — 
a sound, an odor — one could scarcely say what. At best 
it was not cheerful, a slight pain in it, — and I was glad 
to leave. 

Once outside I sat under the wide spreading elms wait- 
ing for Franklin to finish his sketch and thinking of old 
days. Over there, in the house diagonally opposite, on 
the second floor, had lived Thompson, the vain, in his 
delightfully furnished room. I always thought of him 
as vain, even in school. He was so tall, so superior, 
with a slight curl to his fine lips, with good clothes, a 
burning interest in football and hockey, and money, ap- 
parently, to gratify his every whim. He had a kindly, 
curious and yet supercilious interest in me, and occasion- 
ally stopped in to stare at me, apparently, and ask casu- 
ally after my work. 



'BOOSTER DAY" AND A MEMORY 501 

And around the corner of the next block, in a large 
square house, but poorly provided with trees, lived one 
of the most interesting of the few who took an interest 
in me at the time. I could write a long and exhaustive 
character study of this youth, but it would be of no great 
import here. He was a kind of fox or wolf in his way, 
with an urbane and enticing way of showing his teeth in 
a smile which quite disarmed my opposition and inter- 
ested me in him. He was a card sharp and as much a 
gambler as any young boy may be. He drank, too, 
though rarely to excess. All the mechanistic religious 
and moral propaganda of the college intended to keep 
the young straight were to him a laughing matter. He 
was his own boss and instructor. Evidently his family 
had some money, for they seemed to provide him freely. 
Once he came to me with the proposal that we take two 
girls, both of whom he knew and to whom he seemed 
perfectly willing to recommend me in the most ardent 
fashion, to Louisville over a certain holiday — Washing- 
ton's Birthday, I think — he to arrange all details and 
expenses. At first I refused, but after listening to him I 
was persuaded and agreed to go. The result, as I feared, 
proved decidedly disastrous to my vanity. 

His girl, whom he took me to see, was petite, dark, 
attractive, by no means shy or inexperienced; and at her 
house I was introduced to a plump, seductive blonde of 
about seventeen, who was quite ready for any adventure. 
She had been told about me, almost persuaded against 
her will, I fancy, to like me. But I had no tongue. I 
could not talk to her. I was afraid of her. Still, by 
reason of a superhuman effort on my part to seem at 
ease, and not dull, I got through this evening; how I 
don't know. At any rate, I had not alienated her 
completely. 

The following Sunday we went, and had I had the 
least sang froid or presence, 1 might then and there 
have been instructed in all the mysteries of love. This 
girl was out for an adventure. She was jealous of the 
attention showered upon her friend by W . Se- 



502 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

cretly I think she admired him, only in this instance 
loyalty to her friend and indifference on his part made 
any expression of it a little difficult. I was a poor sub- 
stitute — a lay figure — of which she was perfectly will- 
ing to make use. 

On the way on the train we sat in the same seat and 
I took her hand. A little later I gallantly compelled 
myself to slip my arm around her waist, though it was 
almost with fear and trembling. I could not think of 
any witty, interesting things to say, and I was deadly con- 
scious of the fact. So I struggled along torturing my- 
self all the way with thoughts of my inadequacy. 

Arrived at Louisville, we walked about to see the 
sights. There had been a great tornado a few days 
before, and the tremendous damage was still very much 
in evidence. Then we went to the principal hotel for 
dinner. My friend, with an effrontery which to me 
passed over into the realm of the unbelievable, registered 
for the four of us, taking two rooms. I never even saw 
the form of registration. Then we went up, and my girl 
companion, having by now concluded that I was a stick, 

went into the room whither W and his sweetheart 

had retired. W came to my room for me, and we 

went down to dinner. He even urged more boldness 
on my part. 

After dinner, which passed heavily enough for me, 
for I was conscious of failure, we had five hours before 
our train should be due to return. That time was spent 
in part by myself and this girl idling in the general par- 
lors, because W and his mate had mysteriously 

disappeared. Then after an hour or more they sought 
us out and suggested a drive. Since we had brought 
bags, we had to return to the hotel to get them and pay 
the bill. There was still three quarters of an hour. 
After perfecting her toilet In the room belonging to my 
friend, my girl came downstairs to the parlor and, a 

half hour later, just in time to make the train, W 

and his charmer appeared. The day was done. The 



"BOOSTER DAY" AND A MEMORY 503 

opportunity gone. As in the previous cases, I heaped 
mounds of obloquy upon my head. I told myself over 
and over that never again would I venture to make over- 
tures to any woman — that it would be useless. "I am 
doomed to failure," I said. "No girl will ever look at 
me. I am a fool, a dunce, homely, pathetic, inadequate." 

Back in Bloomington I parted from them in a black 
despair, concealing my chagrin under a masque of pseudo- 
gaiety. But when I was alone I could have cried. I 

never saw that maiden any more. Afterwards W 

took me to see his girl again. He had no feeling of dis- 
appointment in me, apparently, or rather he was careful 
to conceal it. He seemed to like me quite as much as 
ever, but he proposed no more outings of that kind. 

And there were C. C. Hall, who lived in a small hall 
bedroom over me, and used to insist, for policy's sake, 
I fancy, that he thought better in a small room, and that 
too much heat was not very healthy; and Short Bill 
Haughey, expert on the violin and a seeker after knowl- 
edge in connection with politics and taxation; Arthur 
Pendleton, solemn delver into the intricacies of the law; 
Russell Ratliff, embryo metaphysician and stoic — a long 
company. I can see them now, all life before them, the 
old, including men and women, merely so much baggage 
to be cleared away — their careers, their loves, their hopes 
all that was important in life. And life then felt so 
fresh and good, so inviting. 

After this came the university, wholly changed, but 
far more attractive than it had been in my day — a really 
beautiful school. I could find only a few things — Wylie 
Hall, the brook, a portion of some building which had 
formerly been our library. It had been so added to 
that it was scarcely recognizable. I ran back in mem- 
ory to all those whom I had known here — the young 
men, the women, the professors. Where were they all? 
Suddenly I felt dreadfully lonely, as though I had been 
shipwrecked on a desert island. Not a soul did I know 
any more of all those who had been here; scarcely one 



504 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

could I definitely place. What is life that it can thus 
obliterate itself, I asked myself. If a whole realm of 
interests and emotions can thus definitely pass, what is 
anything? 



CHAPTER LXI 

THE END OF THE JOURNEY 

We sped north in the gathering dusk, and I was glad 
to go. It was as though I had been to see something 
that I had better not have seen — a house that is tenant- 
less, a garden that is broken down and ravished and run 
to weeds and wild vines, naked and open to the moon — 
a place of which people say in whispers that it is haunted. 
Yes, this whole region was haunted for me. 

I took small interest in the once pleasing and even dra- 
matic ravine where, in my college year, I had so often 
rambled, and which then seemed so beautiful. Now I 
was lonely. If I were to add one chamber to Dante's 
profound collection in the Inferno, it would be one in 
which, alone and lonely, sits one who contemplates the 
emotions and the fascinations of a world that is no more. 

For a little way the country had some of the aspects 
of the regions south of French Lick, but we were soon 
out of that, at a place called Gosport, and once more 
in that flat valley lying between the White and Wabash 
rivers. At Gosport, though it was almost dark, we could 
see an immense grassy plain or marsh which the over- 
flowing river had made for itself in times past, a region 
which might easily be protected by dykes and made into 
a paradise of wheat or corn. America, however, is" still 
a young and extravagant country, not nearly done sow- 
ing its wild oats, let alone making use of its opportuni- 
ties, and so such improvements are a long time off. 

At Gosport, a very poorly lighted town, quite dark, 
we were told that the quickest way to Martinsville, which 
was on our route to Indianapolis, was to follow the river 
road, and because the moon had not risen yet, we were 
halloing at every crossroads to find out whether we were 
on the right one. 

505 



5o6 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY, 

"Hallo-o-ol" 

"Hallo! What do you want?" 

"This the right road to Martinsville?" 

"Straight on!" 

How often this little hail and farewell occurred out- 
side houses set back far from the road! 

And the night lights of machines coming toward us 
were once more as picturesque as those east of War- 
saw, New York. From afar we could see them coming 
along this flat bottomland, like giant fireflies, their rays, 
especially when they swept about turns, seeming to stand 
out before them like the long feeling antennae of insects, 
white and cautious. They were all headed in the direc- 
tion of Gosport, though it did not seem quite possible 
that they were all going there. 

In this warm, sensuous wind that was blowing here, 
it seemed as though nature must be about some fruitful 
labor. Sometimes a night achieves a quality of this sort, 
something so human and sympathetic that it is like a 
seeking hand. I sat back in the car meditating on all 
f had seen, how soon now we would be in Indianapolis 
and Carmel, — and then this trip would be over. Already 
with turns and twists and bypaths we had registered about 
two thousand miles. We had crossed four states and 
traversed this fifth one from end to end nearly. I had 
seen every place in which I had ever lived up to sixteen 
years of age, and touched, helplessly, on every pleasant 
and unpleasant memory that I had known in that period. 
The land had yielded a strange crop of memories and of 
characteristics to be observed. What did I think of all 
I had seen, I asked myself. Had the trip been worth 
while? Was it wise to disinter those shades of the past 
and brood over them? I recalled the comment of the 
poet to whom I had given the reception when I told him 
I was coming out here. "You won't get anything out 
of it. It will bore you." But had I been bored? Had 
I not gotten something out of it? Somehow the lines 
of the ghost in Hamlet kept repeating themselves: 



THE END OF THE JOURNEY 507 

"I am thy father's spirit, doomed for a certain time 
to walk the earth — " 

Martinsville, about half way to Indianapolis, counting 
from Gosport, was another county seat, and in stopping 
there for a shave and a mouthful of something to eat, 
I learned that this, also, was a locally celebrated water- 
ing place, that there were not less than six different sana- 
toriums here, and always as many as fifteen hundred pa- 
tients taking the baths and drinking the water for rheu- 
matism and gout — and I had scarcely ever heard of the 
place. The center of the town looked as though it might 
be enjoying some form of prosperity, for the court house 
on all sides was surrounded by large and rather tasteful 
and even metropolitan looking shops. This portion of 
the city was illuminated by five-lamp standards and even 
boasted two or three small fire signs. I began to won- 
der when, if ever, these towns would take on more than 
the significance of just newness and prosperity. Or is 
it better that people should live well always, rather than 
that their haunts should be lighted by the fires of trag- 
edy? Did Rome really need to be sacked? Did Troy 
need to fall? 

Franklin seemed to consider that peace and human 
comfort were of more import than great tragic records, 
and I thought of this, but to no purpose. One can never 
solve the riddle, really. It twists and turns, heaves and 
changes color, like a cauldron that glows and bubbles 
but is never still. 

And then we settled ourselves once more for the last 
run of thirtyfive miles to Indianapolis. It was after 
nine, and by eleven, anyhow, if not before, barring acci- 
dents, we should be there. The country north of here, 
so far as I could see, retained none of the interesting 
variations of the land to the south. It was all level and 
the roads, if one could judge by the feel, as smooth as 
a table. There were no towns, apparently, on this par- 
ticular road, and not many houses, but we encountered 
market wagon after market wagon, heavily loaded with 
country produce, a single light swinging between their 



5o8 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

wheels, all making their way north to the young, color- 
less city of three hundred thousand or more. 

And when we were still within ten miles of it occurred 
the second of these psychic accidents which always come 
in twos for me. South of Bedford we had killed a hen. 
In the glow of our lamp, perhaps a hundred yards away, 
there suddenly appeared out of the dark a brown pig, 
young but quite as large as a dog, which at sight of the 
lights seemed to make straight for us. It was squealing 
plaintively, as though seeking human care, and yet we 
bore down on it, quite unable, as Bert explained after- 
ward, to turn quickly enough to save it. 

There was a smash, a grunt, and then silence. We 
were speeding along quite as swiftly as before. 

"I tried to turn," Bert called back, "but the darn little 
fool made straight for us. They always do for some 
reason." 

"Yes, it's odd about pigs that way," commented 
Franklin. 

"Number two," I said to myself. 

And in a mile or two more the lights of Indianapolis 
began to appear. It had clouded up, as I have said, as 
we neared Martinsville, and now the heavens reflected 
the glow of the city below. We passed those remote 
houses which people seeking to make a little money out 
of their real estate, or to live where rents are low, build 
and occupy. I thought of the walled cities of the middle 
ages, when people crowded together as compactly as 
possible, in order to gain the feeling of comfort and 
security. In these days we are so safe that the loneliest 
cabin in the mountains fears no unfriendly intruder. 

In a few moments more we were trundling up a rough 
street, avoiding street cars, crossing railroad and car 
tracks and soon stopping at the main entrance of one of 
those skyscraper hotels which every American town of 
any size must now boast or forever hang its head in 
shame. Anything under nine stories is a failure — a sore 
shame. 



THE END OF THE JOURNEY 509 

"We'll have a bite of something before we run out to 
Carmel, won't we?" commented Franklin. 

"Let's end this historic pilgrimage with a drink," I 
suggested. "Only mine shall be so humble a thing as a 
Scotch and soda." 

"Well, I think Fll have some tea!" said Franklin. 

So in we went. 

I was not at all tired, but the wind had made me 
sleepy. It had been a pleasant day, like all these days — 
save for the evoked spirits of dead things. We drank 
and smiled and paid and then sped out of Indianapolis's 
best street, north, and on to Carmel. We were within 
a mile and a half of Franklin's home when we had our 
last blowout in the front right wheel — the two rear ones 
carried new tires. 

"I knew it!" exclaimed Bert crustily, reaching for his 
crutches and getting himself out. "I knew we'd never 
get back without one. I was just wondering where it was 
going to happen." 

"That's funny, Bert!" exclaimed Franklin. "The last 
time we came north from Indianapolis, do you remember, 
we broke down right here." 

"I remember all right," said Bert, getting out the 
tools and starting to loosen the tire clamps. "You'd 
better get out your note book, Mr. Dreiser, and make 
a note of this; the trip's not done yet." 

Bert had seen me draw my deadly pencil and paper 
so often that he could not resist that one comment. 

"I'll try and remember this, Bert, without notes, if 
you'll just get the wheel on," I commented wearily. 

"This is what comes of thinking evil," called Franklin 
jocosely. "If Bert hadn't been thinking that we ought 
to have a breakdown here, we wouldn't have had one. 
The puncture was really in his psychic unity." 

"What's that?" asked Bert, looking up. 

"Well, it's something connected with the gizzard," I 
was about to say, but instead I observed: "It's your spir- 
itual consciousness of well being, Bert. You're all 



510 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

right only you don't know it. You want to get so that 
you always know it." 

"Uh huh!" he grunted heavily. "I see." 

But I don't think he did. 

Then we climbed in, and in about two more minutes 
we were carrying our bags up Franklin's front steps and 
dismissing the car for the night. Mrs. Booth came out 
and welcomed us. 

"We thought you were going to get back last night. 
What delayed you?" 

"Oh, we just took a little longer," laughed Franklin. 

There were letters and a telegram, and instead of my 
being able to stay a few days, as I had hoped, it seemed 
necessary that I should go the next day. My train left 
at two, and to get various things left at Indianapolis on 
my way south, I would have to leave a little before one. 
Speed appeared the next morning to say he would like 
to accompany me as far as Indianapolis. Bert came to 
say goodby early. He was off to join a high school pic- 
nic, composed exclusively of ex-classmates of a certain 
high school year. I was beginning to think I should see 
no more of my charming friend of a few days before, 
when, — but that 

On my long, meditative ride back to New York, I had 
time to think over the details of my trip and the nature 
of our land and the things I had seen and what I really 
thought of them. I concluded that my native state and 
my country are as yet children, politically and socially — 
a child state and a child country. They have all the 
health, wealth, strength, enthusiasm for life that is nec- 
essary, but their problems are all before them. We are 
indeed a free people, in part, bound only by our illusions, 
but we are a heavily though sweetly illusioned people 
nevertheless. A little over a hundred years ago we began 
with great dreams, most wondrous dreams, really — im- 
possible ideals, and we are still dreaming them. 

"Man," says our national constitution, "is endowed 



THE END OF THE JOURNEY 511 

by his creator with certain inahenable rights." But is 
he? Are we born free? Equal? I cannot see it. Some 
of us may achieve freedom, equality — but that is not a 
right, certainly not an inalienable right. It is a stroke, 
almost, of unparalleled fortune. But it is such a beau- 
tiful dream. 

As for the American people, at least that limited sec- 
tion of it that lies between New York and Indiana, the 
lakes and the Ohio River — what of them? Sometimes I 
think of America as a country already composed of or 
divided into distinct types or nationalities, which may 
merge or not as time goes on; — or they may be diverg- 
ing phases of American life, destined to grow sharper 
and clearer — New England, the South, the Far West, the 
Middle West. Really, this region between New York 
and Indiana — New York and the Mississippi really — 
may be looked upon as a distinct section. It has little 
in common with New England, the South, or the Far 
West, temperamentally. It is a healthy, happy land in 
which Americans accept their pale religions and their 
politics and their financial and social fortunes with an 
easy grace. Here flourishes the harmless secret order; 
the church and the moving picture entertain where they 
do not "save"; the newspapers browbeat, lie, threaten, 
cajole; the plethoric trusts tax them of their last cent 
by high prices, rents, fares and interest on mortgages, — 
and yet they rarely, if ever, complain. It is still a new 
land — a rich one. Are they not free and equal? Does 
not the sacred American constitution, long since buried 
under a mass of decisions, say so? And have they not 
free speech to say what the newspapers, controlled by 
the trusts, will permit them to say? Happy, happy 
people! 

Yet for the dream's sake, as I told myself at this time, 
and as against an illimitable background of natural chance 
and craft, I would like to see this and the other sections 
with which it is so closely allied, this vast republic, live 
on. It is so splendid, so tireless. Its people, in spite 
of their defects and limitations, sing so at their tasks. 



512 A HOOSIER HOLIDAY 

There are dark places, but there are splendid points of 
light, too. One is their innocence, complete and endur- 
ing; another is their faith in ideals and the Republic. 
A third is their optimism or buoyancy of soul, their cour- 
age to get up in the morning and go up and down the 
world, whistling and singing. Oh, the whistling, singing 
American, with his jest and his sound heart and that 
light of humorous apprehension in his eye! How won- 
derful it all is! It isn't English, or French, or German, 
or Spanish, or Russian, or Swedish, or Greek. It's Amer- 
ican, "Good Old United States," — and for that reason I 
liked this region and all these other portions of America 
that I have ever seen. New England isn't so kindly, 
the South not so hopeful, the Far West more so, but they 
all have something of these characteristics which I have 
been describing. 

And for these reasons I would have this tremendous, 
bubbling Republic live on, as a protest perhaps against 
the apparently too unbreakable rule that democracy, 
equality, or the illusion of it, is destined to end in dis- 
aster. It cannot survive ultimately, I think. In the vast, 
universal sea of motion, where change and decay are 
laws, and individual power is almost always uppermost, 
it must go under — but until then 

We are all such pathetic victims of chance, anyhow. 
We are born, we struggle, we plan, and chance blows all 
our dreams away. If, therefore, one country, one state 
dares to dream the impossible, why cast it down before 
its ultimate hour? Why not dream with it? It is so 
gloriously, so truly a poetic land. We were conceived 
in ecstasy and born in dreams. 

And so, were I one of sufficient import to be able to 
speak to my native land, the galaxy of states of which 
it is composed, I would say: Dream on. Believe. Per- 
haps it is unwise, foolish, childlike, but dream anyhow. 
Disillusionment is destined to appear. You may vanish 
as have other great dreams, but even so, what a glori- 
ous, an imperishable memory! 

"Once," will say those historians of far distant nations 



THE END OF THE JOURNEY 513 

of times yet unborn, perchance, "once there was a great 
republic. And its domain lay between a sea and sea — 
a great continent. In its youth and strength it dared 
assert that all men were free and equal, endowed with 
certain inalienable rights. Then came the black storms 
of life — individual passions and envies, treasons, strata- 
gems, spoils. The very gods, seeing it young, dreamful, 
of great cheer, were filled with envy. They smote and 
it fell. But, oh, the wondrous memory of it! For in 
those days men were free, because they imagined they 

•were free " 

Of dreams and the memory of them is life compounded. 



THE END 



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